Mysterious Cover problem on a Kindle

[AlexBell]

Moderator: the heading mentions Kindle, but I'd like the posting to remain in Workshop please because I think it is a design/formatting problem.

I've just finished a horribly complex ebook for a small publisher in the UK. The ebook is under copyright, so I can't give a screen shot or other details.

Please imagine that the ebook title is The XXXXXX XXX, and it has a cover which has the The and the XXXXXX, centred on separate lines, and XXX on another line but pushed to the right.

One of the two members of the group who've reviewed the ebook on on her Kindle Voyage states that the cover is distorted in that the 'The' is duplicated, one 'The' above the other, and has sent me a screenshot showing that. Another of the members of the group sees no problem on her Kindle Touch, and I certainly see no problem on my Kindle Keyboard and my Kindle Touch using exactly the same image.

I designed the ebook in ePub, and converted it to Kindle with calibre. Another reviewer in the group sees no problem with the image in iBooks or Bluefire on her iPad or with the Kindle for iPad app, and I see no problem on my iPad, or my Sony, Kobo Glo, or Lenovo tablet using the ePub version of the same file as sent to the lady with the Kindle Voyage

The ebook has more than 80 images, and dozens of poems interspersed in the text. The Kindle is more than six Mb.

Can anyone give me a clue as to what be causing this, or where to go for an answer?

[jhowell]

Is the cover just a plain image or are you are doing something more complicated, such as an SVG containing an image with text overlay?

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Is the cover just a plain image or are you are doing something more complicated, such as an SVG containing an image with text overlay?

Just a plain jpg; nothing fancy at all.

[Turtle91]

Alex,
We'd love to help out more, but it's kinda hard without anything (much) to go on.

Since you can't post copyrighted info here perhaps you could find someone that you could PM. You could then show them the problem with the ePub and they may be able to help.

Otherwise we are just playing a game of 20-questions...

Cheers,

[Barbara1955]

Have this Moved to this Forum .... https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Alex,
We'd love to help out more, but it's kinda hard without anything (much) to go on.

Since you can't post copyrighted info here perhaps you could find someone that you could PM. You could then show them the problem with the ePub and they may be able to help.

Otherwise we are just playing a game of 20-questions...

Cheers,

Thanks, I'm sure you're right.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by Katie1

Have this Moved to this Forum .... https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150

Thanks

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Moderator: the heading mentions Kindle, but I'd like the posting to remain in Workshop please because I think it is a design/formatting problem.

I've just finished a horribly complex ebook for a small publisher in the UK. The ebook is under copyright, so I can't give a screen shot or other details.

Well, assuming that the book will shortly be up for sale, they wouldn't allow a screenshot of the COVER? Seriously?

Please imagine that the ebook title is The XXXXXX XXX, and it has a cover which has the The and the XXXXXX, centred on separate lines, and XXX on another line but pushed to the right.

OK.

So, like this?

The
XXXXXX

XXX

One of the two members of the group who've reviewed the ebook on on her Kindle Voyage states that the cover is distorted in that the 'The' is duplicated, one 'The' above the other, and has sent me a screenshot showing that. Another of the members of the group sees no problem on her Kindle Touch, and I certainly see no problem on my Kindle Keyboard and my Kindle Touch using exactly the same image.

Alex? Is there any chance that the Title page strongly resembles the Cover? Similar fonts, and all that? The reason I ask is that it's not incredibly uncommon for the eInks to have a case of "staining," by which I mean, the eInk screen retains the afterimage of the last page viewed, or, the next-page-in-sequence, making this sort of afterimage imprint on an imaged page. It's been a number of years, since I've seen it--but I've seen it. With my own eyes. Is THAT what you are seeing?

I designed the ebook in ePub, and converted it to Kindle with calibre. Another reviewer in the group sees no problem with the image in iBooks or Bluefire on her iPad or with the Kindle for iPad app, and I see no problem on my iPad, or my Sony, Kobo Glo, or Lenovo tablet using the ePub version of the same file as sent to the lady with the Kindle Voyage

The ebook has more than 80 images, and dozens of poems interspersed in the text. The Kindle is more than six Mb.

Can anyone give me a clue as to what be causing this, or where to go for an answer?

It's too hard to figure out, without some additional information. It simply is.

Hitch

[AlexBell]

Thanks, Hitch. I said it was mysterious.

The cover looks like

The

The

XXXXXXXXX

XXXX

Except that the second The looks to be 'in front of' the first The, and a little of the first The is covered by the second The. And the XXXX is not completely over to the right; it overlaps the XXXXXXXX

The author and editor specifically refused permission for me to send the screen shot to the forum. I'm only the ebook designer.

One think I've noticed since is that calibre has a different setting for Kindle Voyage than for other Kindle models. I use the straight Kindle setting. I don't know if that's related.

Thanks again for your trouble. The Kindle Voyage user, the author, and I have agreed that this is one of life's great mysteries, and have moved on.

[DaveFalcon73]

Hi Alex, I've never seen this happen before on a Voyage or any Kindle for that matter. I would have thought the author wouldn't mind you posting a screenshot of the text of the cover of the book if it means they can get it fixed. If they are that sensitive can't you just edit the book and call it some fictitious title leaving "The" there, check on the Voyage it's still happening then post a screenshot of the bogus title?

The only thing I could suggest would be using Calibre, drag it in and inspect the code and see what that shows. I'm wondering if you have some weird character in there that's messing up the cover page, presuming it's only the cover page at fault and no other part of the book?

[Jellby]

Have you been able to replicate the problem? Can you create a dummy version that could presumably show the same problem (change the title to actually "The Foobarly Foo" or something the same length as the original, distort the image with noise beyond recognition...)?

Hitch's suggestion that it could be some kind of e-ink ghosting looks reasonable.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Thanks, Hitch. I said it was mysterious.

The cover looks like

The

The

XXXXXXXXX

XXXX

Except that the second The looks to be 'in front of' the first The, and a little of the first The is covered by the second The. And the XXXX is not completely over to the right; it overlaps the XXXXXXXX

The author and editor specifically refused permission for me to send the screen shot to the forum. I'm only the ebook designer.

One think I've noticed since is that calibre has a different setting for Kindle Voyage than for other Kindle models. I use the straight Kindle setting. I don't know if that's related.

Thanks again for your trouble. The Kindle Voyage user, the author, and I have agreed that this is one of life's great mysteries, and have moved on.

Given that I seem to recall that you do this as an unpaid hobby--is that right???--they seem awfully ungracious.

How about two quick tests, then?

Can you make a dupe of the book, and change the page AFTER the cover, to different TEXT and see if you get a ghosty afterimage? Of the NEW text?

Or, can you just take some cover (has to be light in color, IIRC) from some book here at the MR library, and slap it on the new faux book, and...oh, you can't, because you don't have a voyage, right?

Crappity. Well, look, if they'll allow it--which I am betting that they won't--you can send the file to me, Alex, and I'll sideload it to my Voyage and see what I see, and swear on the heads of my furry family members not to distribute it to the millions of adoring fans that are just DYING for it...OR, I guess, we can all ignore it.

TBH, I never--never--flip back to book covers in Kindle, or any other damn reader, but I KNOW I've seen this--we had a customer complaint about it, on a PPW, about...3 years or so ago. Very similar--the title page was bleeding through. There was bupkus we could do about it, but, man, the reason that I recall this is because the client was a TOTAL PILL about it, as if we had ruined her book deliberately.

I've now dragged out my K2, my V, and my PPW, to see if I can see a similar issue here.

I'm sitting here, LOOKING at ghosting on a cover. On my Voyage. FWIW. Without testing, Alex, we won't know if that's what your uncooperative client is seeing, or not. And only YOU know, of the persons now discussing this, if the "the" that you're seeing even COULD be the title page, or whatever comes after that cover.

That's my $.02.

Hitch

[AlexBell]

Thanks for all your suggestions. It's an intriguing problem I know, but neither the author nor the publisher seem at all fussed about it, so I think I'll leave it be. They only ask me to do one or two ebooks a year anyway.

Having written that:
- I sent the lady with the Voyage one of the ebooks I've done for the MR library, and she did not see any problem with the cover.
- The text on the cover is as I've described above.
- The text on the following title page is The XXXXXX XXXX, followed by 'by' and the two author's names on separate lines.

Would it be possible for the 'The' on the title page to bleed into the cover page jpg, and end up exactly overlapping the 'The' in the image?

Did you find out what had caused the problem in the ebook you produced, Hitch?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Thanks for all your suggestions. It's an intriguing problem I know, but neither the author nor the publisher seem at all fussed about it, so I think I'll leave it be. They only ask me to do one or two ebooks a year anyway.

Well...it's true that on occasion, I can become intrigued with a problem, just for the sake of problem-solving, but...

Having written that:
- I sent the lady with the Voyage one of the ebooks I've done for the MR library, and she did not see any problem with the cover.
- The text on the cover is as I've described above.
- The text on the following title page is The XXXXXX XXXX, followed by 'by' and the two author's names on separate lines.

I'm not saying that it happens on every book, Alex. I don't know what causes some covers to ghost, and what doesn't. I smply know that it DOES happen.

Would it be possible for the 'The' on the title page to bleed into the cover page jpg, and end up exactly overlapping the 'The' in the image?

Alex, how close to the cover page is your title page? I mean, that's the question, isn't it?

Did you find out what had caused the problem in the ebook you produced, Hitch?

Not in any way that would fix it. Amazon seems to think that it's perfectly normal for the eInks to ghost. So...{shrug}. I'll have to remember to take a look at a newish book, that has the factors that I've noted that contribute--a pale-ish cover (crucial) with a very similar title page layout (this pertains to that sort of "echo" ghosting), or not (this can simply ghost sans echo. This is, obviously, more common).

Is your title page text, or an image, Alex?

Hitch

[Tex2002ans]

Could it be corrupt image metadata? Or a corrupt JPG? Maybe the colorspace on the JPG isn't standard?

Maybe you saved the cover as an Interlaced JPG, and the device doesn't expect those + handle those properly?

Maybe try opening up the cover in GIMP and resaving it as a new JPG. That might clear away some of the potential hidden mess.

Anyway, I am having a very hard time even telling WHAT exactly AlexBell is talking about. I need some images, pictures, SOMETHING to visually see what the F is going on. :P