Because of the way that the ePUB and Kindle formats work, your book cover can only contain a picture. There is no reliable facility for including text on top of the picture and any text added would not be displayed in the eBook preview in the library section of the eBook reader.

 

ePUB and Kindle covers and TOC tutorial project

You can find a tutorial project with ready-to-use IPP cover image templates and templates for your eBook TOC in the Examples\ePub Covers folder in your My HelpAndManual Projects directory.

Variables in IPP cover images are converted automatically when you publish

You can solve this problem by using IPP images made with Help+Manual's Impict image editor, because Help+Manual will automatically convert variables in text objects in the image when you publish the eBook. For example, you can insert variables like <%TITLE%> and <%AUTHOR%> in text objects in the IPP image. You can also insert user-defined variables, like the <%SUBTITLE%> entry shown in the example below.

How to create an IPP cover with variables

Basically, you just need to select an IPP image created with Impict as the cover of your book. If the text objects in the image contain variables Help+Manual will automatically convert them before exporting the cover to the finished eBook as a PNG image.

Optimum dimensions and size for eBook covers

Originally, there were strict limitations on the size of eBook cover images. This has now changed and you can use quite high resolution images, within reasonable limits. As a guideline, Amazon now sets 1,000 pixels as the minimum dimension of the short (horizontal) side of the cover image for Kindle eBooks.

Do a Google image search for "eBook covers" to see some typical examples.

Procedure

1.Choose your cover image, load it in Impict and save it using Impict's .IPP image format. This is necessary to make the text objects and variables available to Help+Manual so that it can exchange them while publishing.

2.Add Text objects and type in the variables you want Help+Manual to replace when you publish the book, using the <%VARIABLE_NAME%> syntax. For example, <%TITLE%> and <%AUTHOR%> will insert the project title and author name from the Title and Copyright settings in the Configuration section of your project.

3.You can use the Impict tools to make the cover more attractive. For example, you can insert filled shapes behind the text objects to make the text stand out against the background, and you can add shadow effects to the text.

4.Choose the .IPP file as the cover image in your eBook settings, in Configuration > Publishing Options > eBooks > ePUB+Kindle: General Settings.