How to Display Covers on Kindle Color for Books Not Bought on Amazon (Using Calibre)

[B00kReader]

Okay, I finally got the KFX conversion to work by converting to MOBI first and then sent the books over with the plugin and they transferred with covers... but it still isn't recognizing collections? If I set it to view collections on the Kindle, it says I don't have any collections ��. If Kobo had a color reader this size I'd definitely be returning this and getting that instead. Had a few people tell me that Kindle was just as good as Kobo about treating books that you add to it as equal to purchased from Amazon books and that is clearly not the case.

[B00kReader]

Ok one last thing (well a few things) - now that it is KFX/PDOC the stylus menu shows up on the left because now Incan mark in the book... but I don't want to mark in this book - can the be turned off somehow or am I stuck with that icon floating on the side of the book now? It also changed the page number in the bottom left to be "Loc". Is that a consequence of it being a PDOC or is there some way to get it to display page number again instead of Loc? And finally, can it show what chapter I'm on somewhere like my Kobo does or is that not a thing on Kindle? I can't seem to find any of these in settings so I'm guessing I'm SOL. Thanks again for any help!

[tomsem]

There is a Hide Writing Toolbar option in the menu.

There's a way to generate and add page numbers, but that's all I know about it.

Chapter titles will not display in status area when you are reading, but only when you have reading options/page preview active.

You can cycle among the status bar options by tapping lower left corner, as well as setting them in Aa / More / "Reading Progress" settings.

[B00kReader]

Originally Posted by tomsem

There is a Hide Writing Toolbar option in the menu.

There's a way to generate and add page numbers, but that's all I know about it.

Chapter titles will not display in status area when you are reading, but only when you have reading options/page preview active.

You can cycle among the status bar options by tapping lower left corner, as well as setting them in Aa / More / "Reading Progress" settings.

Thank you! I found the Hide Writing Toolbar option and also see the Reading Progress settings. I will see if I can figure out how to generate and add page numbers (on the Kobo they renumber themselves when you change text size, I assume they'll do the same here... if I can figure out how to get them at all). For the time being I've changed it from LOC to time remaining in chapter, but I would prefer pages (the Pages option is greyed out). This definitely helped get things to a more familiar/comfortable reading experience. There was another setting that was greyed out while I was looking through things that I can't remember off the top of my head that would be nice if it could be enabled too, but I'll have to go back through and figure out what that was. I'd say overall I still like the Kobo experience a lot better, but this has helped a lot.

The biggest issue I'm still having at this point is that I can't seem to get books to group together as a 'collection/series' on the Colorsoft (well, at least as far as them coming over from Calibre - I can group them manually on the device after they are added but that would be a LOT of work).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by B00kReader

Okay, I finally got the KFX conversion to work by converting to MOBI first and then sent the books over with the plugin and they transferred with covers... but it still isn't recognizing collections? If I set it to view collections on the Kindle, it says I don't have any collections ��. If Kobo had a color reader this size I'd definitely be returning this and getting that instead. Had a few people tell me that Kindle was just as good as Kobo about treating books that you add to it as equal to purchased from Amazon books and that is clearly not the case.

Mobi is a very poor limited format. Using it just for covers and not a good idea.

[Zillion_]

Hello,
Just my two cents: I have covers for all my e-books on Kindle (Colorsoft 2024), and this is how:

1) For KFX format e-books that exist in the Kindle Store for your Kindle's region: ensure the Metadata "IDs" field includes a MOBI-ASIN identifier from Amazon's store. When using "download metadata" you need to limit the download sources to Amazon and ensure you select a Kindle edition of the book.
I'm using Calibre's Search the Internet function with the following custom query to look up any book in the Kindle store (with a hotkey from the Book list):

https://www.amazon.com/s?k={author}+{title:re(\s*(\[[^\]]+\])+$,)}&i=digital-text&sprefix={title:re(\s*(\[[^\]]+\])+$,)}%2Cdigital-text%2C249&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

You can get the MOBI-ASIN from the URL displayed in your browser when you've opened the correct book edition. Don't try to cheat and use the ASIN from a Paperback or CD edition: it won't work !

Note 1: I have "moved" my Kindle to the US region so that it can use the US store (It was in France originally). Amazon explains how to do this.
Note 2: if the book is removed from the Kindle store, you'll have to switch to PDOC (see below)
Note 3: If its mobi-asin changes (e.g. new edition of the book), you'll have to update the metadata and convert your book to KFX or AZW3 again for the cover to display on the device.
Note 4: This trick only works for the KFX format. Use Calibre to convert your e-books.
Note 5: The "thumbnail" cover displayed for the e-book on the kindle is fetched directly from the Kindle store. It IS NOT the book cover which you've chosen in Calibre. That will appear when you open the e-book. So you can have different covers if you wish. For example, sometimes the Store cover is plain ugly, and I get a nicer cover from another edition to show when I open the book (and this is also displayed on the Standby screen).

2) For e-books that are not in your Kindle region's Kindle store: convert them with the "PDOC" option enabled in Calibre (or rather, disable the option "Create book (EBOK) instead of personal document (PDOC)". This also exists only for KFX e-books.

If your e-book exists only as a Paperback or in another Amazon region, or if your book is only on Google or GoodReads -- or nowhere --, then PDOC is your only option.

If you have a not-too-old Kindle I see no reason not to use the KFX format.
It does require some extra installation steps (Install Kindle Previewer -- only version 3 works at this moment !! -- search the Net to find it -- and the KFX Output plugin.) and conversion takes a lot longer.
But the enhanced typesetting, automated hyphening, etc etc are worth it.