Creating cover image from first page of ebook

[Quoth]

There is also a separate plugin you can add to generate / create covers with choice of image, fonts, placement, margins, sizes and overall size. It uses metadata title, author, series, subtitle and user text. All are optional and can be edited.

[kovidgoyal]

That's not a generate cover from first page function thats a read cover from selected format function. It will get you whatever cover is defined in the file. If the file happens to be epub and has no cover defined then and only then will it generate a cover based on the first page of the epub and yes you cant control the size of that cover.

[mcdummy]

But it would be nice to have an option to set the size, if different sizes can be used in the function creating the cover.

With the current size, I usually get a cover which has text with a small size in the upper quarter of the cover and empty space in the remaining three quarters.

[kovidgoyal]

That doesnt have anything to do with the size. That ahs to do with how the first page in the EPUB is designed.

In general instead of trying to get the cover from the EPUB in such case use the generate cover button for a much nicer, well designed , readable cover with essential metadata on it.

[mcdummy]

Actually, that has a lot to do with the size.

The currently generated cover images have the problems I mentioned above because they do not harmonize with the typical font sizes used in the ebooks I know.

A smaller size, which older versions of calibre seem to have used, would give a much more readable cover.

[kovidgoyal]

First pages need to be designed *correctly*. Which means having large, visible text in a large font size, preferably using SVG so the text size scales. If your EPUBs cant be bothered to get that correct, once again I suggest you use the generate cover function. I am done wasting time on this.

[mcdummy]

Then you should inform several international Gutenberg projects and similar projects that they do not format their first pages correctly - although they appear perfectly on e-readers and older versions of calibre produced good covers with their formatting.

Anyway, as suggested in my first post, it would not require any new menus, when the size setting of the generate cover button would be used for generating a cover from the first page of ePub.

Then a user who wants to use this function can adapt the used size to his likes.

But, if you don't want to change the current implementation, then just say it and we can end the discussion.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by mcdummy

Then you should inform several international Gutenberg projects and similar projects that they do not format their first pages correctly - although they appear perfectly on e-readers and older versions of calibre produced good covers with their formatting.

Since Project Gutenberg EPUBs come with covers these days, I think I'll not be wasting my time on that. Or you. Good luck.