Kindle Colorsoft - no cover art in library

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I agree.

Under Windows you cannot create a file or folder with the name "system" in the root of the Colorsoft drive exposed over MTP.

I think Amazon is eventually going to make it so you'll have to buy Kindle content just from Amazon.

[Shaardvark]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Turn on the Enable sharing of book contents option in Preferences->Output options->MOBI output and then send the file to the kindle.

Does this make sense? As explained here, I'm doing a MOBI to KFX
with PDOC, and I have to remove the ASIN/MOBI number for the Cover to be visible.
BUT
Doing a MOBI to MOBI w/ Sharing Enabled, I do not have to remove the ASIN/MOBI number for the Cover to be visible.
And it appears that MOBI2MOBI is faster than MOBI2KFX, yes?

[kovidgoyal]

calibre doesnt support KFX natively its via a third party plugin you should ask in that plugins thread about it.

[Shaardvark]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

calibre doesnt support KFX natively its via a third party plugin you should ask in that plugins thread about it.

The bottom line (at this time), and I think this is what Colorsoft users want to hear, is that (based on what I've experienced so far):
A. KFX can have issues but can give you colored covers.
B. MOBI with Sharing Enabled seems to not have KFX's issues and can get you colored covers.
So I'd say, don't ditch your Colorsoft for another non-Amazon product just yet.

[boylerman]

So I've enable the "sharing of book content" in the preferences, however, the cover is still not transferring to the ColorSoft via Calibre. The only way I've gotten covers over is by using Amazon's Send to Kindle utility.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Shaardvark

Does this make sense? As explained here, I'm doing a MOBI to KFX with PDOC, and I have to remove the ASIN/MOBI number for the Cover to be visible.

The metadata of a book is automatically updated when it is exported from from calibre. For KFX format the KFX Output plugin performs this update. The KFX metadata update process will change the book type from PDOC to EBOK if there is an ASIN present in the calibre library entry for the book.

The next release of the KFX Output plugin will no longer do this if you change the default setting by going to Preferences, Output options (under Conversion), KFX Output and select "Create personal document instead of book" there.

In the mean time you can prevent the change from EBOK to PDOC during export by going to Preferences, Plugins (under Advanced). Under Metadata writer highlight Set KFX metadata and then press the Enable/disable plugin button so that Set KFX metadata is grayed out. This will prevent any change to metadata after conversion to KFX.

[slm]

Originally Posted by JediRhymeTrix

Commenting to follow this thread for updates.

You can just click "Subscribe to This Thread" under the "Thread Tools" menu on the top line of each page.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Shaardvark

Does this make sense? As explained here, I'm doing a MOBI to KFX
with PDOC, and I have to remove the ASIN/MOBI number for the Cover to be visible.
BUT
Doing a MOBI to MOBI w/ Sharing Enabled, I do not have to remove the ASIN/MOBI number for the Cover to be visible.
And it appears that MOBI2MOBI is faster than MOBI2KFX, yes?

Why are you diddling with Mobi? Mobi is an obsolete format. You should be going to KFX from the source format and you should be converting to KF8 if you are not doing KFX.

[JediRhymeTrix]

If the metadata contains an Amazon or mobi-ASIN identifier that belongs to a valid KINDLE version of the book, then the cover is shown on the device. The problem is that the "Prefer the Kindle edition" setting is not very reliable. For some books, it just won't fetch the Kindle version of the metadata, while for others, it might work if the ISBN is removed or maybe if the existing Amazon identifier is removed. In some cases, I could only get it to work if the "amazon:" key was present, but the value was removed.

Obviously, this sort of experimentation isn't scalable for a library of hundreds of books. I wish there was a way to quickly fetch and update the Kindle version ASINs for the books in bulk.

[JediRhymeTrix]

Is there a way to fetch the ASIN of the Kindle version of books that already have an Amazon identifier in the metadata? I've found the "Prefer Kindle edition, when available" setring to be very unreliable. If the amazon or mobi-asin identifier is present and contains a valid Kindle ASIN, the cover (well, "a" cover) shows up on the device.

This is by far the best way to get covers to show up on the Colorsoft without all the drawbacks of converting to PDOC.

[JediRhymeTrix]

Originally Posted by JediRhymeTrix

Is there a way to fetch the ASIN of the Kindle version of books that already have an Amazon identifier in the metadata?

Now, there is:

https://gist.github.com/JediRhymeTri...6f979fe5112725

[kovidgoyal]

You will find amazon will start captchaing your scraper soon enough.

[JediRhymeTrix]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You will find amazon will start captchaing your scraper soon enough.

It already does, but the script doesn't run the selenium webdriver in headless mode and waits for you to enter the captcha before proceeding. I've found that as long as the same browser session and tab are used for every request, the captcha only needs to be entered once at the very beginning of the run.

I've run it for around 800 books several times during development and testing and it's fine so far.

They could very easily change their page structure or apply additional restrictions, though. That's always a risk.

[dursin]

Originally Posted by JediRhymeTrix

Now, there is:

https://gist.github.com/JediRhymeTri...6f979fe5112725

I tried running this, but needed to install python first...then "pip install selenium", "webdriver-manager" and "BeautifulSoup4".

When I try to extract, it's failing because the "extract_amazon_identifiers()" function doesn't seem to exist. Shouldn't that exist in the asin_fixer.py source code or did I miss installing something?

Also, is there a preferred format for the book like epub, mobi, etc..? I think out of necessity all my epub have been converted to mobi for my older Paperwhite.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by dursin

Also, is there a preferred format for the book like epub, mobi, etc..? I think out of necessity all my epub have been converted to mobi for my older Paperwhite.

Epub doesn't work on a Kindle, unless converted. Mobi is an old, outdated format. For modern Kindles either AZW3 (not the same as AZW!) or KFX are best.