Create Hardcover
A Calibre plugin that applies Apple Books-style hardcover effects to your book covers.
Adds realistic 3D spine shadows, spine highlights, page edges, rounded corners, and a subtle background blur to flat cover images.
Features
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Hardcover compositing — spine shadow, spine highlight, page edges, rounded corners, background blur
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RTL support — full right-to-left spine for Arabic, Hebrew, Persian books
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Side-by-side preview — compare original vs generated cover before applying
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Batch processing — generate and apply covers for multiple books at once, with progress bars
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Non-destructive — original covers are backed up and can be restored at any time
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Library filtering — toolbar menu to filter books by generation status
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Keyboard navigation — left/right arrows to browse books in the preview dialog
Requirements
- Calibre 5.0 or newer [not sure]
- Windows, macOS, or Linux
Installation
1. Download Create-Hardcover-plugin.zip
2. In Calibre, go to Preferences > Plugins > Load plugin from file
3. Select the zip file and restart Calibre
4. A blue book icon appears in your toolbar
Usage
Single cover
1. Select a book in your library
2. Click the Create Hardcover toolbar icon
3. Check
RTL Spine if the book is right-to-left
4. Click
Generate
5. Preview the result, then click
Apply
Batch processing
1. Select multiple books in your library
2. Open "Create Hardcover"
3. Click
Generate All — a progress bar shows status
4. Click
Apply All to apply all generated covers
Restoring originals
- Single book: select the book, open "Create Hardcover", click
Restore
- Multiple books: click
Restore All
Library filters
Right-click the toolbar icon for:
-
Show books with generated covers
-
Show books without generated covers
Keyboard shortcuts
Left arrow — previous book
Right arrow — next book
How it works
The plugin composites pre-rendered overlay images (spine shadows, highlights, page edges) onto your cover using blend modes that replicate Apple Books' rendering:
1. Resize cover to 600px wide (preserving aspect ratio)
2. Apply rounded-rectangle mask
3. Create blurred background with multiply blend
4. Apply spine-linearburn overlay (multiply blend)
5. Apply spine-normal overlay (alpha composite)
6. Apply spine-softlight overlay (soft-light blend)
7. Apply page edges overlay (alpha composite)
Hope you like it
Changelog:
Spoiler:
1.5.1
- Fix Recursion Error on large libraries and add background cover scan
- Fix delete original cover backups
1.5.0
- Add Settings dialog with options to delete original cover backups (single book, selected books, all books)
- Persistent settings across sessions
1.4.0
- Add (machine) translations for 14 languages (Arabic, German, Spanish, Persian, French, Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese Simplified)
1.3.0
- Show Apply All and Clear All buttons when viewing generated covers only (Show me mode)
1.2.1
- Fix Restore All progress bar to only count books with saved originals
1.2.0
- Add loading dialog with progress bar when opening the plugin for large libraries
- Cache original-cover checks to improve startup performance
1.1.0
- Add Stop button support for Apply All and Restore All batch operations
1.0.0
- Initial release