diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/epub/output.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/epub/output.py
index 2b27f09664..3a353103c8 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/epub/output.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/epub/output.py
@@ -92,17 +92,20 @@ class EPUBOutput(OutputFormatPlugin):
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
     <head>
         <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
+        <meta name="calibre:cover" content="true" />
         <title>Cover</title>
         <style type="text/css" title="override_css">
             @page {padding: 0pt; margin:0pt}
             body { text-align: center; padding:0pt; margin: 0pt; }
-            div { margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; }
         </style>
     </head>
     <body>
-        <div>
-            <img src="%s" alt="cover" style="height: 100%%" />
-        </div>
+        <svg version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
+            xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
+            width="100%%" height="100%%" viewBox="0 0 600 800"
+            preserveAspectRatio="xMidYMid meet">
+            <image width="600" height="800" xlink:href="%s"/>
+        </svg>
     </body>
 </html>
 '''
