Covers in Calibre

[dvd8n]

Can I ask why, when there's a cover in the epub I'm adding, the only way that I can get Calibre to display an image is to download one from the internet?

I'm not being snarky; it seems really odd to me.

[BookJunkieLI]

Did you try clicking on the little brown book icon on the Edit Metadata screen?

[eschwartz]

It sounds like the cover is not properly marked as the cover, and the EPUB merely has an image as the first page of the book. When opening it to read, it may look the same, but semantically it is not.

Either that, or as BookJunkieLI said, the book imported without a cover due to errors or something, in wich case you can manually set the cover through Edit Metadata (there is a bulk option in Bulk Edit Metadata).

[dvd8n]

Well I'm blowed. I've added over 2000 books to my library and I never knew about that button. I clicked it and it set the cover just fine.

Well then, I guess my question is why doesn't it just do that by default when you open the metadata edit window? Or maybe offer it as an option in the 'download cover' screen?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It sounds like the cover is not properly marked as the cover, and the EPUB merely has an image as the first page of the book. When opening it to read, it may look the same, but semantically it is not.

- should be able to 'fix' it in the Book Editor, hit 'T' on a book to get to the editor.

BR

[eschwartz]

Hehe, we all stormed in at the same time!

Originally Posted by dvd8n

Well I'm blowed. I've added over 2000 books to my library and I never knew about that button. I clicked it and it set the cover just fine.

Well then, I guess my question is why doesn't it just do that by default when you open the metadata edit window? Or maybe offer it as an option in the 'download cover' screen?

I wouldn't want that to happen by default, what if you don't like the cover inside and you removed it then tried to replace it?

It shouldn't be part of the Download cover popup, because then we'd have to extract the cover from each format of the book, every time someone just wanted to download from the internet.
Much better to leave it at showing the current cover (i.e. "leave alone" option) together with any internet-sourced replacement options.


Okay, granted the current method is a little obscure -- but I believe that is because we rarely have to think about it.

[dvd8n]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

- should be able to 'fix' it in the Book Editor, hit 'T' on a book to get to the editor.

BR

Well, I don't really want to fix the xml, I'd rather just have a cover that's in the epub. And the fact that the button manages to extract the cover makes me wonder if that's really an issue.

I just dropped 6 books on Calibre and they all had the brown cover by default and I don't ever recall seeing it work any other way.

[dvd8n]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I wouldn't want that to happen by default, what if you don't like the cover inside and you removed it then tried to replace it?

Ok, fair point....

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It shouldn't be part of the Download cover popup, because then we'd have to extract the cover from each format of the book, every time someone just wanted to download from the internet.
Much better to leave it at showing the current cover (i.e. "leave alone" option) together with any internet-sourced replacement options.

This time, I disagree. I timed extracting the cover at about half a second versus downloading the covers from the various sources at getting on for 10 seconds. Not really that much of an overhead.

[dvd8n]

Or just fish it out of the epub when the book's added the first time

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by dvd8n

Or just fish it out of the epub when it's added the first time

If it's always appearing with the brown book as the default cover then the image you're seeing when you open the book to read it is not properly labelled as the cover image. Just as a test randomly pick a couple of your books and open them with Edit Book. If it doesn't have a cover.xhtml or a cover.jpg then they're not properly marked and Calibre is not going to assume that the first jpg listed is the cover unless you tell it to assume that.

The bulk option to setting the first image as the cover is to select multiple books then on the bulk edit screen under Change Cover is the option to set from ebook files. I recommend doing this in batches of 100 or less while using the Cover Grid View so that you can double-check the right image is now set as the cover.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by dvd8n

Or just fish it out of the epub when the book's added the first time

I don't know why it isn't added in the first place, I certainly cannot replicate that. Have you changed any Add settings?

And I stand by my words when it comes to download covers -- it needn't clog up the popup with an additional cover... per format.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by dvd8n

Well, I don't really want to fix the xml, I'd rather just have a cover that's in the epub. And the fact that the button manages to extract the cover makes me wonder if that's really an issue.

I just dropped 6 books on Calibre and they all had the brown cover by default and I don't ever recall seeing it work any other way.

BetterRed was responding to my suggestion that perhaps the cover was not properly marked. Since you can extract the cover from Edit Metadata, I suspect that isn't the problem -- unless someone here can say that calibre will extract the first image regardless?

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

If it's always appearing with the brown book as the default cover then the image you're seeing when you open the book to read it is not properly labelled as the cover image. Just as a test randomly pick a couple of your books and open them with Edit Book. If it doesn't have a cover.xhtml or a cover.jpg then they're not properly marked and Calibre is not going to assume that the first jpg listed is the cover unless you tell it to assume that.

The actual name of the file internally is meaningless, it matters if the OPF semantically marks it as the cover.

And since Edit Metadata properly extracts it, I assume that is because it is marked correctly.

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I don't know why it isn't added in the first place, I certainly cannot replicate that. Have you changed any Add settings?

Building on what eschwartz just said, are you importing with the "read metadata from file contents rather than file name" selected or unselected? Because if it's not selected, which means it's just pulling metadata from file name, then I don't think it would automatically look for a cover image.

The actual name of the file internally is meaningless, it matters if the OPF semantically marks it as the cover.

And since Edit Metadata properly extracts it, I assume that is because it is marked correctly.

Not necessarily. I work mostly with fanfic ebooks that I've downloaded from various archives. Most of them don't have a cover image but they may have an image in them - either a livejournal icon or artwork for the story that isn't really intended as a cover. Using the brown book icon or the set from ebook file option will pull those images and set them as the cover if they're the first image in the book file.

[goldilocks]

I have been having the same problem. It used to be that when I added a book the cover (it one existed) automatically was loaded too. I'm not sure if a certain version of Calibre changed something or when I got my new laptop I missed a setting somewhere.

Now I continually get the brown book cover. I usually download a cover. Thanks for the hint about the little brown book icon!

Next time I add a book with the brown cover, I'll have to check to see if it's identified as a cover.

[eschwartz]

Okay, I guess that confirms what I suspected might be the case.

So it seems that this might still be the problem (although Add settings could be the culprit as well).

I should think, if the cover is extracted based on the first image (and not marked as cover) then when sending the book, the cover will not be updated, and when converting/embedding, the cover will be doubled.