I looked and couldn’t find any documentation or videos on how to use the “Cover” tab. I especially want to know how to create and add the content for that tab.
Welcome to the community, @Yancey_Yarick! You are right that there isn’t any documentation on this relatively new feature in PTXprint. Well done for discovering it 
!
Here are some basic steps (a picture is worth 1000 words…) which will hopefully help you get started:
Note that when you click on Create Cover Settings, this is exactly what happens. It only sets up the parameters, ready for the next Print action (when it will make the standalone cover PDF file).
Note that if you haven’t already set up the necessary variables on the Peripheral tab, then it will prompt you to do so:
Go ahead, and click OK, and then fill in the missing values:
Note that if you leave the isbn number empty, then no barcode will be generated. But is a code is entered, then the barcode will magically appear !
That’s basically all there is to it. But notice that behind the scenes, it has added a bunch of code to your Front Matter file (which is where you can refine the contents and/or formatting further, and add other information if needed).
Notice that on the Cover tab, there are links at the bottom of the dialog to each of the Styles for each of the 4 different components.
If Create Cover is enabled, then a separate PDF is always produced when you click on Print (Make PDF) This should appear in the same folder as the text content PDF. However, it will only automatically open the cover PDF for you if the Cover tab is active (otherwise the text content PDF gets opened).
Please let me know if your attempt to get covers working is successful, and if there’s anything in the brief explanation above that could do with some deeper detail.
Thanks for the quick reply and the pictures. They do help a lot. Another question I have. Is there a database of pictures and borders that can be used for creating covers?
I’m not aware of a curated public collection of scripture-suitable cover art, sorry.
There is a collection of pre-defined borders, at the end of this document.
The borders are made up from elements (shown in the catalogue, or border-fonts and graphics items can also be used) which are arranged according to a set of rules which the very adventurous can tweak / modify / replace, but so far there is no graphical user interface to help with that, you will need to type the cryptic codes into a style sheet yourself.
The documentation is probably far closer to being a comprehensive (and over-detailed) description of what the code is doing than it is to being comprehensible (blame me, I wrote it)… feel free to ask for help if you want to be brave.
Presumably you already know about the very few options which come built into PTXprint. I think they’ll be available as soon as you click the Section Heading “Select” button.
The complete list of what’s available is:
Obviously that’s not a lot of variety, but it gives you some ideas that you could use (if you know a graphic artist) to create your own.
That sort of static system is easier to use than the dynamic system David describes (look at the Ornaments Catalogue), but less powerful. If you want to create a pdf border, it takes some expertise but is a job that many, many people are highly skilled at. If you want to create “ornaments” borders, it gives you more control in shaping the border (e.g. around Scripture but not around footnotes), but at the cost of using a system that is much more specialize (David would be one of the few people able to guide you through the process, though he’s extremely kind and patient while doing it ).
It’s probably not at all obvious, but if the aim is a stamped border (e.g. metallic lettering on PVC/leather), then those pre-made borders could be loaded as a background image.
Probably also not obvious to new users, is that \esb “sidebars” can have other sidebars inside them, at least as far as PTXprint is concerned. The cover is already made up of multiple such nested sidebars - the front, spine and back think they are specially sized ‘full-page’ sidebars, the ‘cover-spread’ is a bigger full-page sidebar. If you have an ISBN, then that’s in a sidebar to give it a white background.
I don’t know if Word can put text boxes inside other text boxes these days, but that’s roughly what it’s doing.
Thus, if you want some artwork as background but also want to put another piece of artwork (e.g. a pre-created border image which has a transparent background) on top, then you could, of course, merge them in your favourite graphics editor, or you could make PTXprint overlay them by wrapping the coverfront \periph’s contents in \esb\cat borderart\cat* ...... \esbe
I’m not actually recommending this, as there are almost certainly going to be some challenges getting that borderart sidebar to position nicely, but it should be possible.
Putting a box around the tile, however, is very possible.
