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Old 07-29-2011, 03:24 AM   #1
Aleksandr
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Kobo Touch ePub covers

I've been trying to get full-screen covers working for side-loaded ePubs on my Kobo Touch for hours. I've read through much of the advice on these forums and have tried almost everything.

No matter what I do, I can't get the images to fill the entire space of the thumbnails or the full-screen sleep box. There's always this white border – all around with SVG and at the left, right and bottom with an img tag. Here's the code for the SVG, which as far as I've read should work:

Code:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
	<head>
		<title>Cover</title>
		<style type="text/css">
			@page {margin:0; padding:0;}
			html {margin:0; padding:0;}
			body {margin:0; padding:0;}
		</style>
	</head>
	<body>
		<svg version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" width="100%" height="100%" viewBox="0 0 600 800" preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet">
			<image width="600" height="800" xlink:href="images/cover.jpeg" />
		</svg>
	</body>
</html>
I've tried reverse engineering the kepubs, but they seem to be treated differently by the Touch. Taking one and side-loading it results in the same white border. And I thought IE6 was difficult ... What's going on?
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Old 07-29-2011, 08:21 AM   #2
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Last edited by rashkae; 07-29-2011 at 08:21 AM. Reason: I'm stupid
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Old 07-29-2011, 10:27 AM   #3
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?? this already works on the touch with the latest firmware update.

i have a full screen cover with a side loaded book already ( reading the templar chronicles and it fills my screen on sleep / power off )
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Old 07-29-2011, 10:30 AM   #4
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Actually, the code you've posted does not actually work properly with ADE. What you need to do is replace 800 and 600 with the actual dimensions of the cover graphic then it will work properly. Otherwise, you don't get the correct aspect ratio. It's a bug in ADE and Calibre does this to handle the ADE bug.
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Old 07-29-2011, 06:31 PM   #5
Aleksandr
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@siraks Any chance you could send me a non-copyrighted ePub with a working full-screen cover when side-loaded on your Kobo Touch?

@JSWolf Not bothered about ADE, but the dimensions of the cover image I'm using are 800x600.
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Old 07-30-2011, 08:43 PM   #6
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Aleksandr,

Have you looked at the thumbnail images that the Kobo creates. You can find them in the KOBO directory under IMAGES. You will need an image browser that ignores extensions and reads images according to the file headers. I use XNVIEW which is free.

When the KOBO processes a book it creates 4 image files that it uses for sleep/power covers, Library thumbnail, etc.
They are sized(in pixels), 355x530, 149x223, 60x90, and 120x186.

If you check the proportions of your 800x600 cover, you will find it does not match 530x355. It seems that when it processes the cover images, if they do not match the 530x355 proportion exactly, they are slightly shrunk and therefore you end up with small white margins.

You might try editing the cover to the correct proportions and see what happens. I would recomend 1060x710. That way you start from higher resolution and if you get an eReader with a higher res screen later, the cover will still look good.

Also, you can actually edit the KOBO images by hand. As a test I have replaced a 355x530 LARGE image by a 600x800 image and the KOBO showed it fine. However, you would have to hand replace them whenever you do a Factory Reset since the KOBO would reprocess all your books again.

Larry J.
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Old 07-30-2011, 11:40 PM   #7
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Thanks for the info, Larry.

Unfortunately, changing the resolution to 530x355 hasn't made any difference. I have noticed that one of the edited ePubs I've been using to test this has what looks like a page number in the bottom right of the kobo-produced cover image:


Others I have been testing turn out exactly the same, with identical white borders, only without that number. Some sort of border is certainly being applied, but I have no idea why or how; it has to be outside of the html. Any ideas?

Can anyone link me to a non-copyrighted ePub that they know displays correctly (fills the screen) on their Kobo Touch?
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Old 08-01-2011, 03:40 AM   #8
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Aleksandr,

Bad news. I checked some of the serial backups of my kobo going back to firmware 1.9.5 and I have NO covers that do not have at least a slight margin on the right edge. Most have margins on the left, right and top. Only the Kepubs have full covers and I am sure they are downloaded separately to the Kepub files since when those books are downloaded and installed as Adobe DRM files you get a different, more generic cover!

I also found out that previous to firmware version 1.9.5, the kepub covers were in color. After 1.9.6, they are also in B/W like side loaded book covers.

I think that currently the best you can do is to add a small white border to the cover to mask the slight (in some cases) margin that is added.

I will try and experiment with different cover settings and will get back with the best cover to border settings I find.

You can always go the hard route and replace the 355x530 file with your cover directly on the Kobo. That works as I am using a custom file for the book I am currently reading. However, this is a pain to do every time.

Larry J

P.S.

All the thumbnails I have looked at have that small "1" in the corner?

LJ
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Old 08-01-2011, 08:18 PM   #9
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Larry,

Well, at least it isn't just me! If we're both getting that curious number in the bottom-right, the Touch has to be applying its own formatting. Perhaps there's some sort of flag, specific to the Touch, to identify a cover page? Though I couldn't find anything in the html or opf.

I emailed Kobo about it and linked them to this thread, so I guess we'll see what they say.
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Old 08-01-2011, 08:30 PM   #10
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Quote:
All the thumbnails I have looked at have that small "1" in the corner?
If you view the covers using Adobe Digital Editions you will notice that they all have the small '1' in the bottom right corner so the Touch is displaying it for non-Kobo EPUBS but suppressing it for Kobo EPUBS.
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Old 08-02-2011, 02:59 PM   #11
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Also, when you view in Digital Editions, you will see that the next page has a "2" on it.
I think is is some kind of page number?

However, the "1" is actually part of the 4 thumbnails created by the Touch. If you replace the actual thumbnail file with your own, it will not have a "1" on it and it will match your cover file exactly (as long as the proportions are correct).

Because the margins seem to be an effect of the thumbnail creation routine on the Touch I doubt we can do anything simple to the epubs to fix it other than adding a border to the cover. Most covers need some kind of border or margin anyway since they are a different proportion to the Kobo Touch's screen.

Also, remember that the Kobo only creates new thumbnails after a Factory Reset or when the epub is first loaded. Any changes they might make to the firmware would only be evident in new content!

Larry J
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Old 08-03-2011, 11:41 PM   #12
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Anyone not having this issue with the Touch?
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Old 08-04-2011, 02:04 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by larrymohr View Post
I also found out that previous to firmware version 1.9.5, the kepub covers were in color. After 1.9.6, they are also in B/W like side loaded book covers.

All the thumbnails I have looked at have that small "1" in the corner?
The images were optimized in 1.9.6 to improve performance (Smaller+B&W images means less data to load and faster rendering, etc). So keep that in mind when changing covers.

We are aware of the white border issue.

Thanks,
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Old 12-19-2011, 01:39 PM   #14
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Don't know if this helps someone but I changed the image file to 583x805 and it covers the whole screen
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