MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Disable cover generation when adding books in Calibre?

rebl · 02-29-2012, 09:08 AM

Hi all,

I am using Calibre 0.8.41, a fresh install in a new folder.
I've spent (or should I rather say lost) all day looking for a solution (including searching the forum) to the problems I have with covers. You folks are my last chance.

I am adding some epub books to calibre, in order to correct author names (if needed) and maybe covers, then export them for my ebook reader, organized in folders.
Some of them have covers, some don't. And here the problem starts:
1. For those lacking a cover, it seems Calibre automatically generates a cover which is a screenshot of the first page (text converted in image). This is really bad. I would like to be able to search for the books that didn't have covers and maybe add a correct cover to them (search cover:false) but because Calibre adds a cover obviously this kind of search becomes useless.
I was unable to find anywhere in the preferences a way to disable this behavior. How can I prevent Calibre creating covers from 1st page "screenshot"? Is there any way to disable the automatic cover generation when adding books?
2. For some other books, that also have pictures in their structure, it seems that one of the pictures (usually the first one, file name img1.jpg or even cover.jpg) or even a html page (or both) were incorrectly defined as cover in the content.opf file, without being the real book cover. I know, this is not Calibre's fault, but if I want to replace this incorrect cover with a correct one, won't this image be lost/overwritten? How can I prevent this without editing the epub file?
I noticed when exporting the epub to local disk, that a new opf file is generated and the cover file i've chosen is saved near the epub file (so the inside image remains unaffected). But if I generate the epub file to be sent to the device, I suppose the cover will be encapsulated in the epub file right?
So if my first image in the book is dumbly named cover.jpg (I can't say who and why would do this, but this is a real case) then this first picture will be overwritten? I think I've tested this today, but I've done so many tests, imports, exports and saves than I don't even remeber. Maybe some kind soul could clarify this for me.

Thanks you for help or any suggestions.

02-29-2012, 09:08 AM	#1
rebl r.eads e.njoys b.ooks lol Posts: 76 Karma: 580748 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: It's time to get this Book a Rest Device: Kindle 4 NT	Disable cover generation when adding books in Calibre? Hi all, I am using Calibre 0.8.41, a fresh install in a new folder. I've spent (or should I rather say lost) all day looking for a solution (including searching the forum) to the problems I have with covers. You folks are my last chance. I am adding some epub books to calibre, in order to correct author names (if needed) and maybe covers, then export them for my ebook reader, organized in folders. Some of them have covers, some don't. And here the problem starts: 1. For those lacking a cover, it seems Calibre automatically generates a cover which is a screenshot of the first page (text converted in image). This is really bad. I would like to be able to search for the books that didn't have covers and maybe add a correct cover to them (search cover:false) but because Calibre adds a cover obviously this kind of search becomes useless. I was unable to find anywhere in the preferences a way to disable this behavior. How can I prevent Calibre creating covers from 1st page "screenshot"? Is there any way to disable the automatic cover generation when adding books? 2. For some other books, that also have pictures in their structure, it seems that one of the pictures (usually the first one, file name img1.jpg or even cover.jpg) or even a html page (or both) were incorrectly defined as cover in the content.opf file, without being the real book cover. I know, this is not Calibre's fault, but if I want to replace this incorrect cover with a correct one, won't this image be lost/overwritten? How can I prevent this without editing the epub file? I noticed when exporting the epub to local disk, that a new opf file is generated and the cover file i've chosen is saved near the epub file (so the inside image remains unaffected). But if I generate the epub file to be sent to the device, I suppose the cover will be encapsulated in the epub file right? So if my first image in the book is dumbly named cover.jpg (I can't say who and why would do this, but this is a real case) then this first picture will be overwritten? I think I've tested this today, but I've done so many tests, imports, exports and saves than I don't even remeber. Maybe some kind soul could clarify this for me. Thanks you for help or any suggestions.