MobileRead Forums
Register Guidelines E-Books Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Go Back   MobileRead Forums > E-Book Software > Calibre
Reload this Page epub conversion - cover image

Notices

Reply
Page 1 of 2 1 2
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 07-25-2009, 06:08 PM   #1
Nate the great
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 10,034
Karma: 2422819
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: DC Metro area
Device: Shake a stick plus 1
epub conversion - cover image
Using 6.0, I just intentionally made an ebook without a cover. What exactly did calibre add as the cover, and why? It doesn't look very good.

Can you add an option for it to not do this, please? What you had before with 5.x was pretty good, but if possible I'd prefer the option of no cover at all.
Attached Files
File Type: epub Four-Day Planet - Beam, Piper, H._82.epub (267.0 KB, 121 views)
__________________
The Digital Reader blog - www.the-digital-reader.com
Nate the great is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-25-2009, 11:29 PM   #2
kovidgoyal
Creator of calibre
kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kovidgoyal's Avatar
 
Posts: 22,519
Karma: 2944574
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
It's justa generic cover with title and date, IIRC. If you have suggestions for improving it, feel free.
__________________
Get calibre

Notice to all: I can not provide assistance with DRM removal, for legal reasons, so please do not contact me about it.
kovidgoyal is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Enthusiast
Old 07-25-2009, 11:46 PM   #3
Nate the great
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 10,034
Karma: 2422819
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: DC Metro area
Device: Shake a stick plus 1
How about an option for no cover image? If that's too much trouble then could you revert this feature back to 5.x, and simply grab the first page and turn it into a cover? That worked okay.

You know, a fair amount of nonfiction is published with just text on the cover. When I create an ebook without a cover I'm deliberately going for that look.
Nate the great is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-26-2009, 12:44 AM   #4
kovidgoyal
Creator of calibre
kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kovidgoyal's Avatar
 
Posts: 22,519
Karma: 2944574
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
Adding an option for no cover is too much work at this point as all the output plugins expect there to be a cover. Rendering the first page as a cover is possible, but I don't really see how that's any better than a generic cover with the title of the book on it
__________________
Get calibre

Notice to all: I can not provide assistance with DRM removal, for legal reasons, so please do not contact me about it.
kovidgoyal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-26-2009, 01:38 AM   #5
JSWolf
Mobile Reader Geek
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 34,227
Karma: 13801376
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Sony Reader PRS-650, iPad
Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal View Post
Adding an option for no cover is too much work at this point as all the output plugins expect there to be a cover. Rendering the first page as a cover is possible, but I don't really see how that's any better than a generic cover with the title of the book on it
The cover Calibre uses isn't really a cover. It's just a waste of a few pages. It starts off with the title on one page and then the date on the next and the version of Calibre after that. All on three seperate pages.

In the eBook that Nate posted, the 4th page actually looks better then that Calibre put in. I know Nate can fix that manually, but why have Calibre make such a mess when there is no cover?
__________________
Last edited by JSWolf; 07-26-2009 at 01:41 AM.
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-26-2009, 01:48 AM   #6
kovidgoyal
Creator of calibre
kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kovidgoyal's Avatar
 
Posts: 22,519
Karma: 2944574
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
The 4 page thing only happens in ADE and I haven't got around to figurin out why yet. Look at the cover in the calibre viewer to see what it should look like.
__________________
Get calibre

Notice to all: I can not provide assistance with DRM removal, for legal reasons, so please do not contact me about it.
kovidgoyal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2009, 01:45 PM   #7
JSWolf
Mobile Reader Geek
JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.JSWolf ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
JSWolf's Avatar
 
Posts: 34,227
Karma: 13801376
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Sony Reader PRS-650, iPad
Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal View Post
The 4 page thing only happens in ADE and I haven't got around to figurin out why yet. Look at the cover in the calibre viewer to see what it should look like.
I would call that a bug. But the solution is to just remove the default cover and just not have one. ePub can go with whatever the first page is without needing a cover anyway.
__________________
JSWolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2009, 01:47 PM   #8
kovidgoyal
Creator of calibre
kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kovidgoyal's Avatar
 
Posts: 22,519
Karma: 2944574
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
the cover is already fixed for ADE (will be in 0.6.2)
__________________
Get calibre

Notice to all: I can not provide assistance with DRM removal, for legal reasons, so please do not contact me about it.
kovidgoyal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2009, 10:41 AM   #9
Nate the great
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 10,034
Karma: 2422819
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: DC Metro area
Device: Shake a stick plus 1
Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal View Post
Adding an option for no cover is too much work at this point as all the output plugins expect there to be a cover. Rendering the first page as a cover is possible, but I don't really see how that's any better than a generic cover with the title of the book on it
Why not offer the no cover option, and have calibre designate the first file (up to the page break) as the cover? You said elsewhere that calibre looks for an entry in the guide for the cover. This would fulfill that need.

On a related note, why does calibre distort cover images? If I use a cover that is say 400x300 it should not be stretched, but should remain that size. What's really funny (if only it didn't piss me off) is when calibre extracts a 30 by 30 logo and distorts it to around 600 square. Can we have the option of _not_ stretching the cover image, please?
__________________
The Digital Reader blog - www.the-digital-reader.com
Nate the great is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2009, 10:47 AM   #10
kovidgoyal
Creator of calibre
kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kovidgoyal's Avatar
 
Posts: 22,519
Karma: 2944574
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
Actually as of 0.6.7 calibre already offers a no default cover option for EPUB output.

As for why it resizes covers, that's because most people find a little bit of distortion better than the postage stamp look.
__________________
Get calibre

Notice to all: I can not provide assistance with DRM removal, for legal reasons, so please do not contact me about it.
kovidgoyal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2009, 10:57 AM   #11
Nate the great
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 10,034
Karma: 2422819
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: DC Metro area
Device: Shake a stick plus 1
Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal View Post
Actually as of 0.6.7 calibre already offers a no default cover option for EPUB output.

As for why it resizes covers, that's because most people find a little bit of distortion better than the postage stamp look.
Ah. I have 6.7 and did look before posting. Obviously I did not look on the menu screen. Thank you.
__________________
The Digital Reader blog - www.the-digital-reader.com
Nate the great is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2009, 11:58 AM   #12
Nate the great
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Nate the great ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 10,034
Karma: 2422819
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: DC Metro area
Device: Shake a stick plus 1
Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal View Post
Actually as of 0.6.7 calibre already offers a no default cover option for EPUB output.

As for why it resizes covers, that's because most people find a little bit of distortion better than the postage stamp look.
The "no default" option doesn't work quite right. When selected, calibre should not grab the first image in the file as the cover.

I also opened the epub and can see that you stretch the image when displayed, not when the ebook is created. At the very least you need to add a width tag in there as well. Otherwise images that are wider than they are tall will hang off the side of the window.

Here is the thing about stretching the cover. Conversion isn't supposed to introduce new elements; that is something that is done at the time the ebook is created. Instead, conversion is supposed to faithfully replicate the existing content.

As a rule, conversion is _only_ supposed to override the creator _only_ when the change is an unquestionable improvement. At least, that's how I see it.
__________________
The Digital Reader blog - www.the-digital-reader.com
Nate the great is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2009, 07:13 PM   #13
Hellmark
Wizard
Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.Hellmark ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Hellmark's Avatar
 
Posts: 2,499
Karma: 3629753
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Maryland Heights, Missouri, USA
Device: Nokia N800, PRS-505
Would it be possible to allow the users to specify some other generic cover?
Hellmark is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2009, 04:04 PM   #14
prepbgg
Junior Member
prepbgg began at the beginning.
 
Posts: 9
Karma: 10
Join Date: Sep 2009
Device: HTC Hero phone
I've noticed that the cover image that Calibre includes by default in epub files is a large png file. Space is at a premium on my Android phone so I would like, preferably, to have no cover image in my ebooks, or if that is not possible to have a much smaller image included by default.

I'm not sure from the above discussion about the "no default" option whether a "no cover" option is available. (I can't find a menu with "no default" in Calibre.)

If, for some reason, it is not permitted to have "no cover" can I include a blank (or very simple) gif as the default, in order to reduce the file size? If so, how?
prepbgg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2009, 04:09 PM   #15
kovidgoyal
Creator of calibre
kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.kovidgoyal ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
kovidgoyal's Avatar
 
Posts: 22,519
Karma: 2944574
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Mumbai, India
Device: Various
No default cover is under Preferences->Conversion->EPUB Output
__________________
Get calibre

Notice to all: I can not provide assistance with DRM removal, for legal reasons, so please do not contact me about it.
kovidgoyal is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply
Page 1 of 2 1 2

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Auto-creation of cover image on .epub to .mobi conversion december Calibre 4 02-10-2012 05:31 PM
[Old Thread] Epub cover image does not display correctly Amalthia Calibre 30 06-20-2011 11:50 AM
[Old Thread] epub -> mobi conversion; blank page after image joubert Calibre 10 03-07-2011 05:26 PM
Epub mit cover für aldiko erstellen - image wird nicht angezeigt gucky Calibre 3 09-12-2010 01:12 PM
Epub cover image issue vipinpa ePub 18 05-25-2010 12:28 AM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:21 PM.

Contact Us - FAQ - Guidelines - Privacy - Archive - Top

MobileRead.com is a privately owned, operated and funded community.