use a html page from ebook as the cover

stumped · 11-27-2016, 12:00 PM

I am trying to extract individual stories from an omnibus edition
The way the collected stores book is assembled is that each individual book as it's own cover ( html page) followed buy it's text , and there is a master toc to select stories from

the extract process seems easy enough , I can delete all but the HTML that relates to a single story, delete unused images, save as... then use modify epub to clear out the unwanted TOC entries..

but I m stuck on 1 simple trick. the edited down "book" now has just two html files, one is the correct cover for that story, and one is the story text.
but I cannot figure out how to get calibre to treat that 1st html page as the new cover i.e to put that page ( text and image) into the calibre library as a cover picture. I tried saving a copy, editing with sigil outside of calibre - renaming that 1st file as cover.html, then adding that back to calibre but calibre still makes its own, different generic cover, or makes one with just the metadata words on it
what am I missing or doing wrong.

BetterRed · 11-27-2016, 02:53 PM

In the editor, assuming the cover image is in the 'Images' list, use Tools->Add a cover, and select the image. Then you should see a titlepage.xhtml file with the cover in it. Then you'll probably want to delete the 'other' one.

The EpubSplit is an easy way to split omnibus editions, but I don't know if it will deal with the individual covers for the 'sub-books'.

BR

stumped · 11-28-2016, 01:55 AM

thanks - for this specific book, the problem is with how each original book cover is coded: they are using a html file "page" for the cover text, then that code has an img tab that pulls in a separate centred image from the images list. thus the cover becomes text above and below a centred imge, which looks good on an actual reader within the omnibus.
so I can pull out that image and make it into a cover, or I can have a metadata generated text cover, but no easy way to have both. I could remake that text + image combo via copy pastes & word, paint , whatever..... if I had the patience I guess

i dont see any plug in option that lets you combine html text and image into a new cover.

can you advise if the file names cover.html. jacket.html have any special meaning to calibre or to plug-ins please.

luckily this dos not HAVE to be done - it was a learning challenge, trying to prep kid-friendly stuff for a granddaugher who is expecting a tablet to read on. once we've got our heads around how fire for kids aka freetime works we may decide to do things differently anyway. there's a curated fire for kids unlimited package - monthly fee- so possibly we will go with books that are bundled into that instead

BetterRed · 11-28-2016, 02:53 AM

@stumped - I suggest you post a scrambled version of one of the epubs you've split off, you do that via the Scramble Ebook plugin. This will avoid any copyright issues and allow the bookmaker experts to offer their advice.

I don't know if the actual file names matter to calibre or the plugins, I suspect not. I remove covers, jackets and other artefacts with the Modify plugin, then I remove some more with the Sigil metadata editor, e.g. the <dc:description>, <dc:subject> entries etc. The only things I interested in having in an epub are the title, authors, publisher and date published.

So my knowledge of covers and such things is rather limited

BR

stumped · 11-28-2016, 02:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@stumped - I suggest you post a scrambled version of one of the epubs you've split off, you do that via the Scramble Ebook plugin. This will avoid any copyright issues and allow the bookmaker experts to offer there advice.

BR

i can post the censored code for one of the indiviual "book cover" pages in the omnibus, I will just obscure author and title. this is what I wanted to make into an actual cover

Code:

<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<p class="p21"><a id="a50"></a><a id="a49"></a><span class="t4">THE xxxxxxxxx</span></p>
<p class="p21"><span class="t4">xxxxxxxx</span></p>
<p class="p2"><img src="../Images/img16.jpg" width="246" height="227" alt="img16.jpg"/></p>
<p class="p21"><span class="t4">BY</span></p>
<p class="p21"><span class="t4">xxxxxxxx</span></p>
</body>

BetterRed · 11-28-2016, 03:27 AM

So what's the problem, in the titlepage.xhtml I told you how to create, can't you just put the Title above the image and the "BY" and Author below it.

Something like this :-

Click image for larger version

Name: 1.jpg
Views: 271
Size: 249.1 KB
ID: 153275

That's about as far my knowledge of cover pages goes.

BR

stumped · 11-28-2016, 03:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

So what's the problem, in the titlepage.xhtml I told you how to create, can't you just put the Title above the image and the "BY" and Author below it.

Something like this :-

Attachment 153275

That's about as far my knowledge of cover pages goes.

BR

the problem is me not being wide awake yet!
I did not think through your suggestion as far as going on to then edit the title page
I had read "...and select the image. Then you should see a titlepage.xhtml file with the cover in it. ". I had tried that & got an image only title page...

let me go think through how making a cover your way is not the same as simply renaming the 1st file in the book as titlepage.html. I thought that a cover ( in calibre) is an image, saved separately from the book within the library database

stumped · 11-28-2016, 04:25 AM

update - still stuck - i follewed your suggestions, I added
<p>TEST this is a cover </p> to titlepage.html.
looked OK
saved the epub. the cover in the book details pane is unchanged
tried replace cover with modify epub plug in - no joy
tried instead with polish epub.
I still cannot affect what I am seeing in book details pane- thatis still just the image, without the TEST added text

BetterRed · 11-28-2016, 05:03 AM

@stumped - what you see in the library (book details, cover grid etc) has nothing to do with what's in an ePub file - its simply a bitmap display of the cover.jpg file in the book folder, no more, no less.

If you use library functions such as conversion, polish, modify, embed metadata, send to device and save to disk, some of them can take the file 'cover.jpg' in the book folder and put it into an epub (or other format files), wrap it in a barebones titlepage.xhtml, and update the content.opf file accordingly. Any subsequent customisation made within the ePub itself to the titlepage and/or the cover image are local to the ePub.

BR

stumped · 11-28-2016, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@stumped - what you see in the library (book details, cover grid etc) has nothing to do with what's in an ePub file - its simply a bitmap display of the cover.jpg file in the book folder, no more, no less.

If you use library functions such as conversion, polish, modify, embed metadata, send to device and save to disk, some of them can take the file 'cover.jpg' in the book folder and put it into an epub (or other format files), wrap it in a barebones titlepage.xhtml, and update the content.opf file accordingly. Any subsequent customisation made within the ePub itself to the titlepage and/or the cover image are local to the ePub.

BR

yep, that is pretty much what I concluded, and save html from in sigil does not work as that saves only the text. To get the exact text + image that I see within the omnibus it would have to be something open the book page in an epub viewer, screen grab, paste to paint , save as jpg., then use make a cover.
doable with immense patience but not a good candidate for automation.
thanks for help with understanding it all though

theducks · 11-28-2016, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stumped

update - still stuck - i follewed your suggestions, I added
<p>TEST this is a cover </p> to titlepage.html.
looked OK
saved the epub. the cover in the book details pane is unchanged
tried replace cover with modify epub plug in - no joy
tried instead with polish epub.
I still cannot affect what I am seeing in book details pane- thatis still just the image, without the TEST added text

You edited the BOOK. (added text in the titlepage)
Calibre has what WAS in the book or modified outside the book.
They can be different

Calibres (library) cover is ONLY an image.

If you want to see a cover with text, Use the Generate Cover Plugin, it will do what you want with/using the standard fields on custom templates.
This only affects the LIBRARY Metadata

THEN use Polish, conversion, Modify EPUB to embed the new cover IMAGE into the book

BTW to get the EXISTING Cover Image into Calibre. Open the metadata editor (e), select the source format, click the blue book (was brown in earlier versions) on the left.

stumped · 11-28-2016, 10:11 AM

OK, this stopped being fun a while back but having come this far I guess I should try that plug in. I don't see any simple way to do it from first principles

stumped · 11-28-2016, 10:22 AM

PS - but if you could help me get my head around the design philosophy.. by marking this attempt at a summary...
calibre treats a cover as a chunk of metadata and stores it outside of the book ( though confusingly there is usually also a matching copy inside of the book , at first anyway ). it creates the "outside" copy when book is added to library. thereafter it never changes it for that format - but some plugin do.
The database stores one cover per book , no matter how many formats exist, and it stores it as an image.
When send to disc, or convert format is called that outside cover is copied to inside the (new format ) book. No change is made to the convert from book. unless the "conversion" is an overwrite, to same format,
how am i doing so far please ?
then when calibre sends book to kindle ( by wire) , it sends only the book mobi/azw file from which the kindle firmware extracts the inside cover and uses that as a thumbnail. true/false ?

I did read the calibre help all about covers page, but that does not have all the nitty gritty details

jhowell · 11-28-2016, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stumped

then when calibre sends book to kindle ( by wire) , it sends only the book mobi/azw file from which the kindle firmware extracts the inside cover and uses that as a thumbnail. true/false ?

Calibre usually (but not always) copies a separate cover image thumbnail file when sending a book to an e-ink kindle device. The kindle will then either use this thumbnail copy, extract a cover thumbnail image from the book itself, download one from its servers, or leave the book with no cover thumbnail. This depends on the internal coding of the book (Format: MOBI vs KF8, CDETYPE: EBOK vs PDOC vs none, and ASIN) and the kindle firmware version.

You can see the thumbnail image files on your kindle by looking in the system/thumbnails folder. (Show hidden files to see the 'system' folder.)

JSWolf · 11-28-2016, 12:49 PM

If this is for a book that' going to be for sale, it will look awful. If it's for your own use, you can do whatever pleases you.

11-27-2016, 12:00 PM	#1
stumped Wizard Posts: 3,305 Karma: 10259306 Join Date: May 2016 Device: kobo forma, Kobo Libra, Huawei media Tab, fire HD10, PW3 HDX8.9,	use a html page from ebook as the cover I am trying to extract individual stories from an omnibus edition The way the collected stores book is assembled is that each individual book as it's own cover ( html page) followed buy it's text , and there is a master toc to select stories from the extract process seems easy enough , I can delete all but the HTML that relates to a single story, delete unused images, save as... then use modify epub to clear out the unwanted TOC entries.. but I m stuck on 1 simple trick. the edited down "book" now has just two html files, one is the correct cover for that story, and one is the story text. but I cannot figure out how to get calibre to treat that 1st html page as the new cover i.e to put that page ( text and image) into the calibre library as a cover picture. I tried saving a copy, editing with sigil outside of calibre - renaming that 1st file as cover.html, then adding that back to calibre but calibre still makes its own, different generic cover, or makes one with just the metadata words on it what am I missing or doing wrong.

11-28-2016, 03:27 AM	#6
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 21,660 Karma: 29711016 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	So what's the problem, in the titlepage.xhtml I told you how to create, can't you just put the Title above the image and the "BY" and Author below it. Something like this :- That's about as far my knowledge of cover pages goes. BR

11-28-2016, 04:25 AM	#8
stumped Wizard Posts: 3,305 Karma: 10259306 Join Date: May 2016 Device: kobo forma, Kobo Libra, Huawei media Tab, fire HD10, PW3 HDX8.9,	update - still stuck - i follewed your suggestions, I added <p>TEST this is a cover </p> to titlepage.html. looked OK saved the epub. the cover in the book details pane is unchanged tried replace cover with modify epub plug in - no joy tried instead with polish epub. I still cannot affect what I am seeing in book details pane- thatis still just the image, without the TEST added text Last edited by stumped; 11-28-2016 at 04:27 AM.

11-28-2016, 10:22 AM	#13
stumped Wizard Posts: 3,305 Karma: 10259306 Join Date: May 2016 Device: kobo forma, Kobo Libra, Huawei media Tab, fire HD10, PW3 HDX8.9,	PS - but if you could help me get my head around the design philosophy.. by marking this attempt at a summary... calibre treats a cover as a chunk of metadata and stores it outside of the book ( though confusingly there is usually also a matching copy inside of the book , at first anyway ). it creates the "outside" copy when book is added to library. thereafter it never changes it for that format - but some plugin do. The database stores one cover per book , no matter how many formats exist, and it stores it as an image. When send to disc, or convert format is called that outside cover is copied to inside the (new format ) book. No change is made to the convert from book. unless the "conversion" is an overwrite, to same format, how am i doing so far please ? then when calibre sends book to kindle ( by wire) , it sends only the book mobi/azw file from which the kindle firmware extracts the inside cover and uses that as a thumbnail. true/false ? I did read the calibre help all about covers page, but that does not have all the nitty gritty details Last edited by stumped; 11-28-2016 at 10:34 AM.

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11-27-2016, 02:53 PM	#2
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 21,660 Karma: 29711016 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	In the editor, assuming the cover image is in the 'Images' list, use Tools->Add a cover, and select the image. Then you should see a titlepage.xhtml file with the cover in it. Then you'll probably want to delete the 'other' one. The EpubSplit is an easy way to split omnibus editions, but I don't know if it will deal with the individual covers for the 'sub-books'. BR

11-28-2016, 01:55 AM	#3
stumped Wizard Posts: 3,305 Karma: 10259306 Join Date: May 2016 Device: kobo forma, Kobo Libra, Huawei media Tab, fire HD10, PW3 HDX8.9,	thanks - for this specific book, the problem is with how each original book cover is coded: they are using a html file "page" for the cover text, then that code has an img tab that pulls in a separate centred image from the images list. thus the cover becomes text above and below a centred imge, which looks good on an actual reader within the omnibus. so I can pull out that image and make it into a cover, or I can have a metadata generated text cover, but no easy way to have both. I could remake that text + image combo via copy pastes & word, paint , whatever..... if I had the patience I guess i dont see any plug in option that lets you combine html text and image into a new cover. can you advise if the file names cover.html. jacket.html have any special meaning to calibre or to plug-ins please. luckily this dos not HAVE to be done - it was a learning challenge, trying to prep kid-friendly stuff for a granddaugher who is expecting a tablet to read on. once we've got our heads around how fire for kids aka freetime works we may decide to do things differently anyway. there's a curated fire for kids unlimited package - monthly fee- so possibly we will go with books that are bundled into that instead

11-28-2016, 02:53 AM	#4
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 21,660 Karma: 29711016 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	@stumped - I suggest you post a scrambled version of one of the epubs you've split off, you do that via the Scramble Ebook plugin. This will avoid any copyright issues and allow the bookmaker experts to offer their advice. I don't know if the actual file names matter to calibre or the plugins, I suspect not. I remove covers, jackets and other artefacts with the Modify plugin, then I remove some more with the Sigil metadata editor, e.g. the <dc:description>, <dc:subject> entries etc. The only things I interested in having in an epub are the title, authors, publisher and date published. So my knowledge of covers and such things is rather limited BR

11-28-2016, 05:03 AM	#9
BetterRed null operator (he/him) Posts: 21,660 Karma: 29711016 Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Sydney Australia Device: none	@stumped - what you see in the library (book details, cover grid etc) has nothing to do with what's in an ePub file - its simply a bitmap display of the cover.jpg file in the book folder, no more, no less. If you use library functions such as conversion, polish, modify, embed metadata, send to device and save to disk, some of them can take the file 'cover.jpg' in the book folder and put it into an epub (or other format files), wrap it in a barebones titlepage.xhtml, and update the content.opf file accordingly. Any subsequent customisation made within the ePub itself to the titlepage and/or the cover image are local to the ePub. BR

11-28-2016, 10:11 AM	#12
stumped Wizard Posts: 3,305 Karma: 10259306 Join Date: May 2016 Device: kobo forma, Kobo Libra, Huawei media Tab, fire HD10, PW3 HDX8.9,	OK, this stopped being fun a while back but having come this far I guess I should try that plug in. I don't see any simple way to do it from first principles

11-28-2016, 12:49 PM	#15
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 79,413 Karma: 145491800 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	If this is for a book that' going to be for sale, it will look awful. If it's for your own use, you can do whatever pleases you.

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