[GUI Plugin] Generate Cover

[DASTRAL]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@jackr - AFAIK the drawing library that calibre and this plug in uses doesn't support translucent fonts. I have no idea what an inverted font is. Surely making the font transparent is giong to make it even harder to make the text stand out rather than easier?

I think he's referring to special effects like you have in MSWord.
To give an impression the letters are carved, pressed, printed, burned.
http://www.hazelden.org/HAZ_MEDIA/2706zoom.jpg (printed)
http://www.bigbooksponsorship.org/im...photos/500.jpg (burned)
https://pledesigns.com/images/sketch...classic_03.jpg (carved)

Still if you are smart/crafty enough, it's probably possible to do that just with a font.

My goals is to process my 8000 "pre epub" era ebooks and add a leather cover to end up with something classy like :
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr...ne5oo1_400.jpg
http://www.ybj-printing.com/images/book-10.jpg

[Vaesse]

Now that the export/import feature is included and seems to be working fine, I've gone back and added export settings to the covers I've posted already:

Firefly and Roswell

Buffy and Angel

I also have Doctor Who covers personalized for each incarnation (all 11 so far). If anyone wants them, I'll post them. I'm not as happy with those as the ones I've already posted, but they're not bad.

Still plan to eventually make:
- Bones
- Dawson's Creek
- Kyle XY
- Queer as Folk
But not rushing on them at the moment (though I could be convinced to give them priority if someone else wants them).

[jackr]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

@jackr - AFAIK the drawing library that calibre and this plug in uses doesn't support translucent fonts. I have no idea what an inverted font is. Surely making the font transparent is giong to make it even harder to make the text stand out rather than easier?

What I meant by inverted is, as an example, the font color goes white when its over a black background:



But now that I look at it, it would need some work to make it look good (although adding stroke to it would probably work). But by the sounds of it Calibre wouldn't support it anyways.

Originally Posted by kiwidude

As for the other idea of sizing based on the background image - that sounds fair enough. Though I'm kind of "over" this plugin at the moment having just made so many changes to it for this release so it will have to sit on the todo list for a future release for now.

Thats fine by me, glad I could help contribute ideas all the same.

[rkbarbour]

When generating a default cover (latest version) how do you change Series number on the cover from Roman Numerals to regular base 10 numbers?

[kiwidude]

Don't keep them in Roman Numerals in the first place

The setting in calibre is rather hidden - took me three attempts to find it again going through all the screens, but it is in
Preferences -> Look and Feel -> Book Details
There is a checkbox up the top right.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by rkbarbour

When generating a default cover (latest version) how do you change Series number on the cover from Roman Numerals to regular base 10 numbers?

Adding to the Dudes' answer

Once a cover has been generated, it is a snapshot of how things were at that time.

Get all your ducks in a row (Metadata should be perfect) before generating covers and then converting .

If you change thing, you need to make a new snapshot (and insert it into your book. And maybe convert again).

[richreads]

Hi.
I'm just trying out Generate Cover with the FanFictionDonloader.
I would like to include the date the cover was generated on the cover.
Is there a way to do this other than manually typing it into the text field.
Or a expression I can enter that would always generate todays date -say somelike {today} in the text field?

[JimmXinu]

Assuming you have FFDL set to update metadata, you can use {last_modified} in the GC custom text.

[richreads]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Assuming you have FFDL set to update metadata, you can use {last_modified} in the GC custom text.

Great I'll give that a try.

[kiwidude]

Changes in this release:

• Add a 'Resize cover dimensions to match background image' suboption for if you have stretch image to use as cover background enabled.

This was requested above. Note that I have moved the Stretch checkbox option onto the Dimensions tab along with this new option, since all three work together.

So now you don't have to muck around with proportions or copying dimensions if you are using a background image/swapping between them with this checked.

[Dyspeptica]

I really like the ability to create a full-bleed cover (which the default generate scheme will not allow). However, I'm missing something about how this works....or I'm doing it in the wrong order.

I have a bunch of html files from which I want to create epubs. I have been using eboot-convert to batch file the conversion to epubs.
Then I open calibre, and 'add books'. At this point, there is no cover. I then generate the cover I want and each book gets its own title (some html poking required beforehand!).

BUT: the newly generated cover does not seem to get 'attached' to the file. I have been using 'convert books' in calibre to 're-convert' the books. This seems wrong, somehow. I seem to be missing something.

BTW, the generation portion works fine. I'm getting great covers, but a manual step seems to be required.

[JimmXinu]

Take a look at the Modify ePub plugin thread. There's a new feature being added to insert the caliber cover into the epub without reconverting.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Take a look at the Modify ePub plugin thread. There's a new feature being added to insert the caliber cover into the epub without reconverting.

or ...

... "add" the HTML version to calibre as your first step. Then assign a cover and then convert to ePub from within the calibre UI. This way, the appropriate image and related page structure will be incorporated into the ePub initially.

[Dyspeptica]

Thanks JimmXinu, I will check out the Modify ePub plugin.

Dwig, The problem with doing it that way, is that it *requires* doing everything within the gui. I have a largish number of files to deal with and I do *not* want to have to modify metadata on every one of them when ebook-convert does just fine with the correct switches on the command line. It IS a long command line, but I only type it once!

As in:

for file in *.htm; do
title=`cat ../../title/$file`
echo ""
echo " Title is "$title
echo ""
oldfile=$file
newfile="${file/%htm/epub}"
echo " Converting "$file " to "$newfile
echo ""
echo ""
/usr/local/calibre/ebook-convert $oldfile ../epub/$newfile --input-profile default --output-profile ipad --no-default-epub-cover --no-svg-cover --base-font-size 10 --remove-paragraph-spacing --remove-paragraph-spacing-indent-size -1 --unsmarten-punctuation --disable-delete-blank-paragraphs --insert-metadata --max-toc-links 0 --no-chapters-in-toc --toc-threshold 0 --author-sort "Me" --authors "Me" --publisher "Me" --title "${title}"
done

ebook-convert *seems* faster than the gui too, although I doubt that that is actually true. Maybe it's because I don't watch it while it's running.

[Dyspeptica]

I tried Modify ePub, but notwithstanding the implications of the help page, it does not insert the new cover. By the looks of it, it will clean up a lot of leftovers, so I'm likely to run it as a matter of course.

But I really want an automated method of creation including the cover. It looks like I may get asked to produce *individualized* copies of various books. I want the cover to show the title etc. but I may need to insert individualized dedications, and photos (gifs). Doing that is not difficult, while still in the html file stage, but the cover conversion is a sticky wicket. Would be nice!