Covers and illustrations

A collection with covers is a pleasure to browse; a collection without them is a spreadsheet. Most of the time you get the cover for free — it arrives with the book details from the online source. When it does not, there are several ways to supply one.

Downloading a cover

Select the book and choose Book › Download cover (F2). All My Books looks the book up in the online source and takes the cover image from it. This is the one to try first for a book that was typed in by hand or imported from a bare list.

From a file

1. Choose Book › Add Cover… (Ctrl+R).
2. Select the image. JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF and WebP are all accepted, and HEIC/AVIF as well when Windows can read them.
3. Click Open.

From the clipboard

Copy a picture anywhere — a browser, a photo app, a screenshot — then right-click the cover area of the book card and choose Paste image as Cover. This is usually the quickest route for a book the online sources do not have.

From a scanner

For an old book that exists nowhere online, scan the cover:

1. Choose Book › Get cover from TWAIN (scanner)… (F11).
2. Pick the TWAIN source if you are asked.
3. Scan with your scanner's own software; the result comes back into the book card.

Extra images

A book can hold more pictures than just the front cover — the back cover, the spine, a dust jacket, a signed title page, illustrations, or a photo of the damage on a second-hand copy.

• Book › Add illustration (Ctrl+S) adds one from a file; the clipboard works too (Paste image as Illustration).
• The Illustrations tab of the book card lists them, and lets you reorder them, give each one a caption (Modify hint), and delete them.
• Use as cover promotes any extra image to be the main cover.
• Save illustration and Save all extra images get the pictures back out as files.