EPUB Quick Fixes: Cover image not displaying in Finder or eReader Libraries

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If you notice that some of your EPUB files, instead of displaying their cover within macOS Finder, or on an eReader, display this:
Or some other generic placeholder identifying the default app in which the file will open, you haven't identified the cover correctly inside your content.opf file.

There are two steps to fix this:
  1. Within the <manifest> tags of your package (within the opf file), and separate to a declaration of the xhtml of the coverpage you need to identify the image itself that you are using for the cover, e.g. <item id="CoverImage" href="images/cover_image.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg" properties="cover-image" />, making sure to include the attribute properties with a value of "cover-image", as shown, along with all the other attributes (of course pointing to your actual image).
  2. The first step has fulfilled the require of the EPUB 3 standard but now you also need a line in your <metadata> tags that reads, e.g. <meta name="cover" content="CoverImage" />, where the value of the content attribute is the same as the id attribute of your item element within the manifest.
Now you should see your cover displayed where it was not before:
Finally, you can read about the validity of continuing to include this EPUB 2 meta element within EPUB 3 on the IDPF discussion forum.



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