Viewing the book cover on iBooks?

[planemechanic]

This is not an issue for every book but some books have never nice covers, pictures or artwork and all I see on iBooks is the small thumbnail. Why doesn't iBooks open the file to the cover first, then I can begin reading it? Is there a way to do this?

 

[Bremen]

I notice that it seems to be dependent upon the book itself. Some when I open them it shows the cover, then I turn the page to begin reading. Others it opens directly to the text. I do not know of a way to force it, there must be something in the formatting of the books that is different....

 

[planemechanic]

Of all the books I have read on my iPad not one of them has opened to a cover first. I didn't even think it was possible until your post.

 

[Bremen]

The following is just a guess....

I notice some books have a separate file for the cover (usually a jpeg image). Others seem to have a cover image contained in the book file itself. The ones that have it contained within the actual book file are the ones that open up to a cover image. Most of the time the image is not full screen, but half or three-quarters screen. Like I said, just a guess. I was hoping someone else might chime in with their experiences.....

By the way.... I know you have a large library. When you update iBooks to the latest version it will take a while for it to index your library the first time you start it after the update.While it is doing that your bookshelf will be empty! Don't freak out, your books will appear when it is done

 

[planemechanic]

The following is just a guess....

I notice some books have a separate file for the cover (usually a jpeg image). Others seem to have a cover image contained in the book file itself. The ones that have it contained within the actual book file are the ones that open up to a cover image. Most of the time the image is not full screen, but half or three-quarters screen. Like I said, just a guess. I was hoping someone else might chime in with their experiences.....

By the way.... I know you have a large library. When you update iBooks to the latest version it will take a while for it to index your library the first time you start it after the update.While it is doing that your bookshelf will be empty! Don't freak out, your books will appear when it is done

Yeah, if you make many changes to your library, ie adding cover pages to files that are missing them, updating the type, etc.... the resorting will take a long time.

 

[Valmore Daniels]

Some publishers include the cover graphic in the epub file, others do not.

 

[planemechanic]

I update my book files that are missing cover art by adding the cover art as "art work" in iTunes. It shows up in iBooks, on the shelves, but not when you open the individual book. It's disappointing, as some books have very nice cover art.

 

[Joseph Mitchell]

I don't own an iPad yet, so I'd have to ask someone who does if my book cover shows up.

 

[DebraLMartin]

Hey Joe, I'm with you - no ipad yet, but it's on my wish list. I don't know if my covers show up either or if it goes directly to the text. Wish iBookstore was accessible on my MAC so I could check these things.

Deb

 

[The Alternative]

I've never had this problem myself. However, all my epub books were created using Calibre with Metadata and covers added during the conversion process. Here is a sample of my bookshelf:
And all my books open on the covers.

 

[ad12524]

Hello guys,
I've had the same problem with several PDF files, and I've found the way to fix them so the covers show up in iBook or other readers.
1) First you need to install Adobe Acrobat Pro (so you can edit the PDF files)
2) In Adobe Acrobat Pro, show all pages, and check if the first page is an image/cover, if the first page is not an image/cover, find the cover (hard drive/online) and add it to the first page and save the pdf.
3) If there is one image/cover, extract it to the hard drive, delete the first page containing the image/cover, save the pdf. Repeat step 2.

 

[ad12524]

If the PDFs in iBooks or other readers are not showing images, then follow the steps below:
1) Open pdf file in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
2) Save pdf file as Postscript file.
3) Open Postscript file and it saves as PDFs.

I have successfully fixed several PDFs using this steps.

 

[BigJim]

What is strange is that iTunes shows all my covers properly! But iBooks fails 80% of the time. On my 800 .pdf books. Is there a good alternative to iBooks? This is a deal breaker. Just looking for a pdf viewer that has a bookshelf view that works, if that's not too much to ask, Apple, unless you deliberately cripple iBooks with pdf so I'll just re-buy all 800 books from Apple...

Anyway, GoodReader, and CloudReader don't show a bookshelf with cover icons. Kindle (at least the software version for iPad) seems to ignore .pdf files (coincidence?).

OK after all my whining its looking like Bookman solves my problem. I'll move all my books out of iBooks and use Bookman instead. Good move Apple. I'll remove iBooks while I'm about it.