Plug-in for adding covers from disk

[ghappe]

Good Morning All,

Yes, I've found a workaround for this problem, act as follows:

1) Load E-books into Calibre using "Add-Books one book per directory" from the input directory
2) Use "Edit Meta-Data in Bulk" to add a generated cover
3) Use save to disk to export the data, make sure the output format is identical to the input format.
4) Replace the *.jpg files in the output directory with the ones you want to use, make sure the names are exactly the same. (I've used the xcopy /s command to do this).
5) Delete the E-books from Calibre.
6) Load E-books into Calibre using "Add-Books one book per directory" but this time use the above named output directory.
7) And, whalla, you have your E-books with the covers you want!!

There may be other ways to achieve this but for now I'm fine, still, a load from disk option in Calibre would save a lot of work.

Anyway, many thanks for the responses and keep reading those books...

Kind greetings,


Guido

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ghappe

Good Morning All,



There may be other ways to achieve this but for now I'm fine, still, a load from disk option in Calibre would save a lot of work.

Anyway, many thanks for the responses and keep reading those books...

Kind greetings,


Guido

Way easier than all those steps.
(I am going to describe the Edit Metadata method)
1) Find books that need covers (no cover, or generic cover): I suggest tagging in advance,the search on the tag, results Only showing)
2)have the source cover folder open in the file browser alongside calibre
3)Starting at the top of the list: Edit Metadata (single Mode)
4) Drag the desired cover (file) from the OS file browser onto the 'Cover' in the metadata. (You can also rview and fix other errors at this time)
5) use the 'Next' button

6) Repeat #4 and 5. Use OK to end the Metadata session

(Optional if you wish to embed the cover into the book) <this step bypasses all those edit gyrations you were doing
When done, select all the refreshed cover books: Run (as applicable. with update cover as one of the options ) one of the Polish, Modify EPUB or Convert to same format. I don't know if Embed Metadata updates the cover

[ghappe]

Thank you, theducks,

I know I can do that but I have 35.000 ebooks and no RSI insurance, so..?

greetings,

Guido

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ghappe

Good Morning All,

Yes, I've found a workaround for this problem, act as follows:

1) Load E-books into Calibre using "Add-Books one book per directory" from the input directory
2) Use "Edit Meta-Data in Bulk" to add a generated cover
3) Use save to disk to export the data, make sure the output format is identical to the input format.
4) Replace the *.jpg files in the output directory with the ones you want to use, make sure the names are exactly the same. (I've used the xcopy /s command to do this).
5) Delete the E-books from Calibre.
6) Load E-books into Calibre using "Add-Books one book per directory" but this time use the above named output directory.
7) And, whalla, you have your E-books with the covers you want!!

There may be other ways to achieve this but for now I'm fine, still, a load from disk option in Calibre would save a lot of work.

Anyway, many thanks for the responses and keep reading those books...

Kind greetings,


Guido

That actually isn't an optimal way of doing it because the problem is that you cause a conversion to happen.

The best way to update the cover (other then using Modify ePub) is to use Edit Book, replace the cover image in the ePub with the one you want and then check out the cover HTML to make sure it['s displaying the cover properly and if not, fix that and done.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by theducks

Way easier than all those steps.
(I am going to describe the Edit Metadata method)
1) Find books that need covers (no cover, or generic cover): I suggest tagging in advance,the search on the tag, results Only showing)
2)have the source cover folder open in the file browser alongside calibre
3)Starting at the top of the list: Edit Metadata (single Mode)
4) Drag the desired cover (file) from the OS file browser onto the 'Cover' in the metadata. (You can also rview and fix other errors at this time)
5) use the 'Next' button

6) Repeat #4 and 5. Use OK to end the Metadata session

(Optional if you wish to embed the cover into the book) <this step bypasses all those edit gyrations you were doing
When done, select all the refreshed cover books: Run (as applicable. with update cover as one of the options ) one of the Polish, Modify EPUB or Convert to same format. I don't know if Embed Metadata updates the cover

Causes a needless conversion. It's a poor way to update the cover.

[exaltedwombat]

It seems as much, if not more work to organize your covers for batch import than it would be to simply add them to each book in the usual way.

[BetterRed]

@JSWolf & exaltedwombat - in the OPs original post the number of books to be processed is 35,000, and in another post he/she refers to a friend with a similar issue with a collection of 200,000 books

I read the original problem as being how to upload the 35,000 separate cover images the OP already had into the book folders that were created by adding the 35,000 format files. And in the case of the friend 200,000 images into 200,000 book folders.

Editing thousands of EPUBs with the book editor or uploading thousands of covers via Metadata editor->Change cover->Browse sounds like hard work to me.

As the OP said his solution worked and he didn't have to take out RSI insurance.

BR

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That actually isn't an optimal way of doing it because the problem is that you cause a conversion to happen.

The best way to update the cover (other then using Modify ePub) is to use Edit Book, replace the cover image in the ePub with the one you want and then check out the cover HTML to make sure it['s displaying the cover properly and if not, fix that and done.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Causes a needless conversion. It's a poor way to update the cover.

No, Embed Metadata/save to disk does not cause a conversion.

It updates the cover.jpg and content.opf with calibre's copy of the metadata, and does not touvch any other part of the book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

No, Embed Metadata/save to disk does not cause a conversion.

It updates the cover.jpg and content.opf with calibre's copy of the metadata, and does not touvch any other part of the book.

It's been a long time since I've seen the results of a Calibre metadata and/or cover update. It's a lot better then I last saw.