Inserting a Page at the Beginning of the Book

[dunhill]

Hi everyone, when I use Convert Books → Output Settings → Structure Detection → Insert Metadata on a Page at the Beginning of the Book, I'd like to be able to choose which fields to display. Is there a template for this, or how do you handle it?

For example, removing the publisher and date and adding the page count and the series number (if applicable).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dunhill

Hi everyone, when I use Convert Books → Output Settings → Structure Detection → Insert Metadata on a Page at the Beginning of the Book, I'd like to be able to choose which fields to display. Is there a template for this, or how do you handle it?

For example, removing the publisher and date and adding the page count and the series number (if applicable).

As for automating which fields get put on this first page, I see no way to specify which fields are used/not used.

Manually with the editor works after the conversion. If you don't need to convert other then to get this one page, you ca do it in the editor without converting.

[theducks]

Create a Custom Jacket by placing your version of
C:\Program Files\Calibre2\app\resources\jacket
in the configuration folder: resources\jacket

[dunhill]

I thought about using the Modify EPUB plugin and Add/Replace Metadata Jacket, and editing this HTML by adding:

<tr> <td class="cbj_label">Pages:</td> <td class="cbj_content">{#pages}</td> </tr>

But it's not retrieving any data

[theducks]

Originally Posted by dunhill

I thought about using the Modify EPUB plugin and Add/Replace Metadata Jacket, and editing this HTML by adding:

<tr> <td class="cbj_label">Pages:</td> <td class="cbj_content">{#pages}</td> </tr>

But it's not retrieving any data

Just to be clear. You ARE using the method I outlined above for those edits?

[dunhill]

Originally Posted by theducks

Just to be clear. You ARE using the method I outlined above for those edits?

If you find the template.xhtml file in resources\jacket and modify it like this

[theducks]

I am far from a expert.
I did find this note in the matching CSS:

 <!-- 
        In addition you can add code to show the values of custom columns here.
        The value is available as _column_name and the title as
        _column_name_label.  For example, if you have a custom column with
        label #genre, you can add it to this template with _genre_label and
        _genre. Note that the # is replaced by an underscore. For example
        
        <div style="display: display._genre"><b>{_genre_label}:</b> {_genre}</div>

		If #genre is not set, then the entire <div> element will be hidden.
        -->

You have a div 'Jacket', did you modify the sibling stylesheet.CSS to include?

[dunhill]

Great! I've modified both the template file and the stylesheet with these results.
I'm keeping a copy of the files in the folder.
I'm sharing a zip file in case anyone needs it.

README.txt
==========

Calibre Book Jacket Customization
---------------------------------

This package contains two modified files:

- template.xhtml
- stylesheet.css

These files control the structure and style of the "Book Jacket" that Calibre inserts into books during conversion.

Installation paths (requires administrator/root privileges):

- Windows:
  C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\jacket\
  (on some installations: C:\Program Files\Calibre\resources\jacket\)

- macOS:
  /Applications/calibre.app/Contents/Resources/jacket/

- Linux:
  /usr/lib/calibre/resources/jacket/
  (depending on distribution: /opt/calibre/resources/jacket/)

⚠️ Warning:
- Always back up the original files before replacing them.
- Keep that backup in a safe place (for example, this ZIP).
- A Calibre update may overwrite these files. If that happens, simply copy your customized versions back from the backup.