Forma Cover tips and tricks

[PhyrePhox]

Hey everyone. My Forma is in the shop for a backlight repair, but before I sent it in, I noticed that the sleep cover didn't stay closed very well, and the reader was often low on battery unexpectedly. I started using my "spare" Aura H2O without the cover to see if it would be manageable to use the Forma that way once I get it back. This made me notice the cover art wasn't the same aspect ratio the screen of the reader, and I got a little obsessed...
First, I decided to find interesting cover art. I like the weird old art from the 60s and 70s for sci-fi. I'm currently reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, and I prefer the art from the 1st edition hardcover.
Then, I found this site that lists aspect ratios of various e-readers. My Aura's ratio is 8.94:6.75 (yes I know I'll have to redo this for the Forma).
Lastly, I used this site to crop the highest resolution version of the cover I could find. The good thing about this site is I can constrain the crop selection box to a specific aspect ratio.
Then I replaced the cover art in Calibre and re-synched the book to my Aura, and I'm very happy with the result.
Does anyone have a better method or suggestions to make this go faster? Thanks.

[NiLuJe]

That site may in some cases be slightly inaccurate.

The KA1's resolution is 1404x1872, which makes its AR 0.75, like almost every other Kobo out there (weird viewport quirks aside, which, surprise, includes the H2O, whose top 11 pixels are hidden, meaning it ends up being 1080x1429 instead of 1080x1440).

At most, it's going to skew off that 0.75 AR by a few pixels for some odd ducks (Aura HD, possibly Glo HD).

So, what you want to do depends on your preference. I tend to prefer honoring the *cover art's* AR, instead of the screen's (i.e., letterboxing on a black background), so I just need to know the screen resolution.

For more technical details, see my answers in this recent thread.

[PhyrePhox]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

I tend to prefer honoring the *cover art's* AR, instead of the screen's

That's what I have been doing until now, I simply decided to try filling the screen with an image instead.

Thanks for the additional info.

[Liesse]

Odd that you should post about you battery eating forma now, as I had the same problem last week.

I got a new book I was exited to read that night. So I decided to take time before work to load it into calibre, do all the calibre stuff and put it in my forma so I could read as soon as I got home.

I don't remember how much battery my Forma had. I remember glancing at the battery icon, and thinking 'this might need a charge in my the next day or so' but felt fairly sure having it plugged into my pc while I loaded the new book would act as a top up and I'd be fine for a decent amount of reading time that night. So I loaded my new book, closed the official sleep cover and put my Forma back on my bedside table where he lives. I went to work.

When I got home, I obviously want to start my new book. Sadly my Forma displayed a 'Please charge your e reader' message and showed a zero charge. I was most unimpressed, and I don't really understand what happened.

My Forma is in the official cover. It has the setting to go to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity, and WiFi is off. Where did all the battery go?

I spent an anxious half an hour waiting for the charger to get my Forma past 30 % battery before I could start reading. Then I left him on charge overnight.
I've been anxiously watching the battery level this week, but it seems normal. I too have been wondering if its a cover thing and wondering if a naked forma and sleeve might be better (but I did drop my h2o last year from hip hight on concrete last year and I'm convinced the gecko cover saved him).

Has anyone else had this happen?

[PhyrePhox]

Originally Posted by Liesse

Odd that you should post about you battery eating forma now, as I had the same problem last week.

It's been happening frequently to me.
I honestly think that the little flap part is not staying down. The magnet inside it is supposed to trigger the sleep function but if it up just a little bit, the distance is too great and the trigger doesn't happen. My device had the discolouration in the backlight along that edge which is why I sent it in. I will see if the replacement device has the same problem with holding the charge. If it does, I will try running it without the cover for a while (dangerous but just for a test). Also, I picked up a cheap 3rd party cover on Amazon with the magnet; I will see if it works any better.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by PhyrePhox

...the cover art wasn't the same aspect ratio the screen of the reader, and I got a little obsessed...

Does anyone have a better method or suggestions to make this go faster? Thanks.

I started a thread about this last year: Stretch the cover to fit the screen?

Basically, you can automate the process using the Kobo Touch Extended plugin in Calibre. Post #2 (quoted below) answers the question. Post #3 can resend all the already sideloaded covers back to the device.

The setting is in Calibre. Go to Plugins, under Device Interface Settings, find your Kobo Touch Extended plugin, on the Collections, Covers & Uploads tab, uncheck "Keep cover aspect ratio."

It stretches the cover on the sleep screen to fill it. But since book covers tend to be almost as wide as the screen, the distortion is minimal. And you don't have to manually edit/crop each and every book cover.

[PhyrePhox]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

It stretches the cover on the sleep screen to fill it

I guess we all have our things that bug us; stretching the image would bug me! LOL

Thank you for the great idea!

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by PhyrePhox

I guess we all have our things that bug us; stretching the image would bug me! LOL

I'm usually really picky about things staying in proper aspect ratio. But when it comes down to covers for ebooks, it gets down to how much time spent fixing every cover for 5k books that I could spend reading instead. The covers aren't distorted by much, I'd be hard pressed to tell if it's original AR or not (unless it has a recognizable actor's face for instance, that you probably could tell easily, but I have zero book covers like that). And how much time do you spend looking at the cover anyway?

There's also the fact that to get it in perfect AR for your reader without any stretch at all, you will have to cut some of the cover image away, from either the top and bottom or from the sides. There's no getting around that. So is chopped off images and text better than a slight stretch of the image to you? If it is and you don't mind spending the time, go for it.

For me, the slight stretch is better than cutting off any part of the cover image, and definitely better than the blank sidebars on any cover image.

[PhyrePhox]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

time spent fixing every cover for 5k books

This is a very good point, and I hadn't thought through what I was doing to that extreme. But for now, it's not much work to do for just the book I'm currently reading, which is the only one that will be filling the screen when the device is sleeping anyway.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by PhyrePhox

I guess we all have our things that bug us; stretching the image would bug me! LOL

Thank you for the great idea!

It's not as bad as you think. Here is an image of the actual cover of the book I am reading and a photo of my Clara's sleep screen.

Please do not judge me for my bad reading taste or lack of photography skillz

[PhyrePhox]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

It's not as bad as you think.

AAAAHHHH MY EYES!!!

Actually, you are right, it looks just fine (even to my disturbed vision). Thank you.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by PhyrePhox

AAAAHHHH MY EYES!!!

Actually, you are right, it looks just fine (even to my disturbed vision). Thank you.

If you decide to do the stretch, I've noticed that the cover does fill the sleep screen. But in the book itself, the cover there is shown at original ratio.

[PhyrePhox]

Even better!