Wrong covers show on my Nook?

[ZodWallop]

Not sure if this is a Sigil question or an ePub question (or even a Nook question).

But whenever I edit an ePub with Sigil and use the Add Cover tool to replace the original cover, and then send the edited file to my Nook, the original cover invariably shows.

For instance, I just sent The Hunchback of Notre Dame to my Nook. Opening the ePub with Sigil, the cover added using Sigil shows. But when sent to my Nook using Calibre, it still displays the original file, 0008.jpeg as the cover, rather than cover.jpg that I added with Sigil.

There must be somewhere else in the ePub that points to a cover file, but I'm not sure where. I did look at content.opf in the ePub and that still pointed to 0008.jpeg. So I changed that, pulled the book off the Nook and sent it back and it still shows the original cover. I guess that could be that the database on the Nook wasn't updated? Or is there something else that needs to be changed? Any ideas?

[Turtle91]

Using the Add Cover function should make all the appropriate adjustments in all the correct files. I haven't had an instance where it messed something up. Are there multiple cover settings in the opf? If there are, I think the default is to use the last one.

[DNSB]

Depending on how you are sending the book to your Nook, have you tried deleting the book from the Nook before sending the edited book? If you are using calibre, does calibre have the updated cover as part of it's details for the book?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Depending on how you are sending the book to your Nook, have you tried deleting the book from the Nook before sending the edited book? If you are using calibre, does calibre have the updated cover as part of it's details for the book?

I don't buy books from B&N. Everything on my Nook is sideloaded with Calibre.

Purchased books come from Amazon and those I add those to Calibre as AZW3 files. Any cover problems there are solved with the conversion from AZW3 to ePub.

The problem would be books downloaded from Gutenberg, Standardebooks or somewhere like that. Books that are downloaded as ePub from the get-go. My process is usually:

1. Download ePub and add to Calibre.
2. Let Calibre find (or occasionally make) a better cover and slap that cover into Calibre
3. Open the ePub with Sigil
4. Add the Calibre cover file with Sigil (the + button)
5. Use the Add Cover tool in Sigil
6. Save
7. Send to Nook using Calibre

Adding books to my Kobo always works as the conversion from ePub to Kepub fixes any issues. It's only on the Nook where the original ePub is moved without conversion that covers are an issue.

To fix the Hunchback of Notre Dame I mentioned earlier, I had Calibre convert from ePub to ePub. That fixed it. But I'd like to find the root problem.

[Calenorn]

Hello Zod,

Back in the Simple Touch days, the NOOK software would always choose an image labelled "cover.jpg" or "cover.jpeg" to display as the cover and to create the thumbnail. A book with a cover using a different name would get the simple white rectangle showing just the title and author printed.

Early on I got in the habit of changing the name of any image I wanted to use to "cover.jpg". Anything from Project Gutenberg (for example) has some ridiculously long file names for all the images.

[Calenorn]

Also, I seem to remember that once the NOOK had created a cover thumbnail that it was frustratingly difficult to get a new cover to display for the same book after it had been modified. I think if the KB size of the updated file is different from the original, that was enough to trigger creation of a new cover image. Or to change the name of the file, maybe?

[DiapDealer]

I can't see anything wrong (epub spec-wise) with your process using the latest version of Sigil. For epub2, the only requirements for a properly configured cover page is a manifested xhtml file which has reference entry of type "cover" in the guide section of the opf file; and a properly manifested image file that has a meta entry with a "name" attribute value of "cover" and a "content" attribute value which matches the manifest id of the image. All of which seems to happen with the steps you listed.

The only thing I can think of is that Nook has special (non-spec) requirements that calibre automatically accommodates in an epub to epub conversion. Or there's something about the Add Cover tool's svg wrapper that Nook doesn't like.

If you're talking epub3, you may have to manually run the Update Manifest Properties tool (Tools->Epub3 Tools) to make sure the svg manifest property gets added to the cover page's manifest entry in the OPF (though that may automatically get taken care of with the Add Cover tools--I forget).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

Hello Zod,

Back in the Simple Touch days, the NOOK software would always choose an image labelled "cover.jpg" or "cover.jpeg" to display as the cover and to create the thumbnail. A book with a cover using a different name would get the simple white rectangle showing just the title and author printed.

Early on I got in the habit of changing the name of any image I wanted to use to "cover.jpg". Anything from Project Gutenberg (for example) has some ridiculously long file names for all the images.

Right, but as I mentioned, The Hunchback of Notre Dame used a file labelled as 0008.jpeg for the cover. I added the file cover.jpg and it it as the cover. Yet when I sent the ePub to the Nook, it displayed the original 0008.jpeg as the cover, regardless.

That makes me think that somewhere there's some code using 0008.jpeg as the cover file and it was not updated by Sigil's Add Cover. Just a guess.

[DiapDealer]

The Add Cover tool makes all necessary changes. Or it at least attempts to. There could be a situation where something is falling through the cracks, but I suspect we would have heard about it before now, if so. As I mentioned before, I used your workflow steps to verify that Sigil's Add Cover tool is doing everything that the epub2 spec requires.

If not using the automatic Add Cover tool, there would be multiple steps required to specify a new cover page/image.

What version of Sigil are you using?

[Calenorn]

Or it's the NOOK being stubborn about not updating the cover image because it has already done it once and it thinks the file is the same.

That's a horribly non-technical way to express it, but seems about right for the old Simple Touch.

[DiapDealer]

And it's not inconceivable that calibre knows a way to trick the Nook into noticing the cover page/image has been updated.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

Or it's the NOOK being stubborn about not updating the cover image because it has already done it once and it thinks the file is the same.

But that can't be, as it happens the very first time I add a book to the Nook.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The Add Cover tool makes all necessary changes. Or it at least attempts to. There could be a situation where something is falling through the cracks, but I suspect we would have heard about it before now, if so. As I mentioned before, I used your workflow steps to verify that Sigil's Add Cover tool is doing everything that the epub2 spec requires.

Have you tried changing the cover to an ePub and sending it to an ePub device? It happens to me on both of my Nooks. I want to say it happened to me on my Nook ST too, but it's been so long, I can't say for sure.

Calibre is set to convert to kepub, so I haven't been able to verify it on a Kobo.

I could try dragging and dropping an ePub to the Kobo to see if that happens. I'm not sure if cutting Calibre out of the process might be a different complication though.

What version of Sigil are you using?

9.14. But this has been an ongoing issue for me.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Have you tried changing the cover to an ePub and sending it to an ePub device?

Okay dude. I dug out an old Sony 505 reader someone gave me. I added an ePub and it came up with the new cover. I added the same ePub to my Nook and it displays the original cover. So there must be something in the Nook's programing for covers.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

1. Download ePub and add to Calibre.
[...]
5. Use the Add Cover tool in Sigil
[...]
7. Send to Nook using Calibre

I believe the problem occurs at Step 1 + 7.

When you do Step 1, and initially add the book in Calibre, Calibre will assign the OLD COVER into Calibre's metadata.

When you then SEND using Calibre, Calibre sends the old cover over, not the one marked in the Step 5 EPUB.

I believe if you:

1. Right-Click a book in Calibre > Edit Metadata > Edit Metadata Individually > Change Cover > Browse, then select your updated cover.

OR

2. Edit the EPUB in Sigil (update the cover, etc. etc.). Reimport this corrected EPUB back into Calibre.

Either of those solutions should take care of your cover-on-the-device issue.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

It's only on the Nook where the original ePub is moved without conversion that covers are an issue.

Doing a Calibre "Send To" sometimes does little extra things depending on the device. For example, creating covers to Kindles so sideloaded books appear with covers in your bookshelf:

Sideloaded AZW3 showing no cover with send-to-kindle (Kindle PW3)

I would say the only way to guarantee no strange conversion is happening is to drag/drop your files manually.

Originally Posted by Calenorn

Or it's the NOOK being stubborn about not updating the cover image because it has already done it once and it thinks the file is the same.

That's a horribly non-technical way to express it, but seems about right for the old Simple Touch.

On my old Nook, when I did minor corrections to an EPUB and overwrote the old EPUB, it sometimes had a tough time recognizing any files changed.

I had to occasionally reset the entire device before it recreated the library/updated metadata.