It would have been a great benefit if the World Page Numbering Consortium could make us a page numbering standard and that this could be implemented in all reader devices and software (as an option).
The standard should somehow define how much text that goes on a page.
This would help us all:
1.
To know where we are in a book. Bookmarks only solves this problem when using the same device, and not when we want to look up the text on another device or when we want give the world or our mother a reference. Provocative speaking: Not being able to make references to text is a look-up that can be compared to DRM.
2.
To know and to communicate the length of a text or portion of text. Is the novel 100p or 1kp, how much have I read? How long time will I use to read the rest of it?
Percentages alone could only be used to solve problem number 1 if the World Percentage Book Referencing Consortium gave us some recommendations regarding how the percentages should be calculated. Such algoritm would not be stragit forward taking into considerations on differences between different formats and embeded media, talbes etc. The slightest difference in the algorithm calculating percentages would make percentages useless on 59.2% in a 1kp book.
Percentages do not help with issue number 2. Without page numbering (which of course is not perfect) I am clueless of how to know or refer the length of a text. Kb could be an option for nerds, but it would not work because of compression, embedded media etc.
An alternative would be that the publisher defines pages for each book (as is common practise for pbooks today
) and embedded the page numbering in the markup of the ebook. This would solve both problem 1 and 2.
Thoughts anyone?
(I know that this has been discussed in other treads earlier but no conclusions have been made so far ;-))