Kindle Page Numbers

[user_none]

Originally Posted by cybmole

So what is the current thinking & the longer term plan here

They are treated just like any auxiliary file. Ignored. There are no plans to support files other than ebooks within calibre.

Originally Posted by cybmole

also, I have the calibre plug in that brings in the Kindle book & strips its DRM in the process - do I have to worry about DRM in the associated apnx ?

No. The APNX files do not support / require / deal with DRM in any way. The APNX is based on file offsets in the uncompressed HTML contained within the MOBI file. So as long as you don't modify the HTML content the APNX will be correct for the file with or without DRM.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by user_none

They are treated just like any auxiliary file. Ignored. There are no plans to support files other than ebooks within calibre.

.

I could argue that they contain data which is "part" of the ebook, so should they not just be imported & passively stored.

otherwise calibre no longer holds a backup of "all" my kindle content ?

[user_none]

Originally Posted by cybmole

I could argue that they contain data which is "part" of the ebook, so should they not just be imported & passively stored.

Not going to happen anytime soon.

Originally Posted by cybmole

otherwise calibre no longer holds a backup of "all" my kindle content ?

Backing up all Kindle or all ebook reader content for that matter isn't and never has been a feature or priority. Some device interfaces support a few device specific features but storing those files with the ebook as part of your library is not supported.

[Daermond]

Hi.

My question is for user_none.
I love your APNX gen plugin for calibre.
I have an idea that I think not a difficult to implement, but useful.

My request is for the accurate page number generation. How here and in the source code also, you mention that the accurate page number generation based on that a book has 70 characters and 32 lines per page. My question is that it is possible that there could be an option to change these variables by users needs. So it would be nice to have an option at the plugins customization for a Custom accurate page number generation option where I can set the number of lines and the number of characters per page.
I think it will be useful. So everyone could fine tune the page number parameter by his/her needs.
I have a kindle with custom font (Liberation Sans) with second size font and with small line spacing. With these layout configuration I could count the lines per page and an average characters per line, and based on these custom data I could set the APNX generations parameter. I could get a closer Kindle page numbering result, so I would get a closer result how page turns left from a chapter and approximately how much kindle page the book has.
I know that it will not gives a precise result but it would be fare more closer to the real kindle pages by my settings. May a few pages difference per 100 pages.
And these settings could be useful for paper book conversation of course if the lines and character numbers are known.

If it is possible please implement it in the future version.
Thanks,
Daermond.

[user_none]

@Daermond, having page numbers gives two things. A way to keep your place that makes more sense than location 828002 and to give a comparison between books. Having user configurable page sizes would remove the second advantage of having page numbers. I personally don't see user configurable amounts necessary and I don't have plans to add it. If someone else wants to they can.

I would rather spend my time making the more accurate parser even more accurate than making it configurable.

[Daermond]

Yes you have right what gives page numbering. What I want with the configurable lines and characters per page is that for my custom Kindle settings I could compare books, how much "Kindle Pages" it has and a better way instead of locations, where I'm in the book and how much turns are left from a chapter.
That is ok that you don't feel these optin neccessary or that these option is not good.
By the way I'm happy that the parser will be more accurate in the future.

For my needs I have made some changes in your APNX Generator GUI plugin if you don't mind.
I have added the apnx.py from Calibre source with my custom settings into your plugin and modified to call the APNXBuilder routine from the apnx.py in the plugin rather than from Calibre built in kindle interface plugin.
The result was what I expected!
With my custom settings I could create an apnx file where was just a few pages differece per 100 kindle page turns.
Now I can see that how long (how much kindle page turns) is a book and how much turns left from a chapter to finish the reading and go to sleep.
So I made it.
Thanks for the plugins! And I wait to a more accurate parser.

[philmate]

Originally Posted by user_none

There is no publically avaliable information that maps places in an ebook to a page in a print edition. The only sources right now are purchased books. If you buy the book with this info there is no need to generate an APNX (or NCX) yourself to approximate.

Hi. I'm new here and a newbie when it comes to formatting ebooks. Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I have a particular interest in it.

There are cases where there is a need to generate references to page numbers in a print edition, and I am working on such a case now, for Kindle Direct Publishing. The book concerned is non-fiction -- hence the desirability of being able to cite it with page references. It is out of print, but there is likely to be a renewed interest in it when a new book that is now in preparation is published (in print and ebook form).

I can live without a publicly available map of pagination information. I am prepared to manually identify page starts in the text by comparing with the out-of-print paper version. Time-consuming maybe, but it would be worth it to me. Is there any way of inserting that information into an APNX file? Of course, if Amazon would tell us how to do it, that would be preferable, but they haven't seen fit to ...

Any help greatly appreciated.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by philmate

Hi. I'm new here and a newbie when it comes to formatting ebooks. Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I have a particular interest in it.

There are cases where there is a need to generate references to page numbers in a print edition, and I am working on such a case now, for Kindle Direct Publishing. The book concerned is non-fiction -- hence the desirability of being able to cite it with page references. It is out of print, but there is likely to be a renewed interest in it when a new book that is now in preparation is published (in print and ebook form).

I can live without a publicly available map of pagination information. I am prepared to manually identify page starts in the text by comparing with the out-of-print paper version. Time-consuming maybe, but it would be worth it to me. Is there any way of inserting that information into an APNX file? Of course, if Amazon would tell us how to do it, that would be preferable, but they haven't seen fit to ...

Any help greatly appreciated.

The data can be placed in the toc.ncx file. See the wiki for details on apnx and ncx.

Dale

[philmate]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The data can be placed in the toc.ncx file. See the wiki for details on apnx and ncx.

Dale

Wow -- a reply in 6 minutes! Thank you so much, Dale.

I located references in the wiki to what KindleGen needs to generate an APNX file at https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/APNX. It will take me more than 6 minutes to get my head around the toc.ncx pageList feature (see https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/NCX) or alternatively the separate page-map.xml file (see https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Adob...tions#Page-map), but I will persevere.

Reading that stuff made me realize that it might be necessary to test what I do by getting the files onto my device rather than just using Kindle Previewer.

Thanks once again, Phil

[philmate]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The data can be placed in the toc.ncx file. See the wiki for details on apnx and ncx.

Dale

@Dale:

Sorry to be a pain, but I now have a further question that I haven't been able to find an answer to on the forum or the wiki (or anywhere else, for that matter).

I understand that the NCX file needs to include a pageList section, an example of which is set out in the wiki entry on NCX. However, I presume that the appropriate tags or anchors also need to be included in the HTML text of the book itself at the beginning of each "page". Can you possibly explain the syntax that those tags or anchors need to comply with, or refer me to somewhere that will explain?

Thanks tons.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by philmate

I understand that the NCX file needs to include a pageList section, an example of which is set out in the wiki entry on NCX. However, I presume that the appropriate tags or anchors also need to be included in the HTML text of the book itself at the beginning of each "page". Can you possibly explain the syntax that those tags or anchors need to comply with, or refer me to somewhere that will explain?

The format in the NCX file is, for example:

  <pageTarget type="normal" id="pagetarget000007" value="7" playOrder="7">
    <navLabel>
      <text>7</text>
    </navLabel>
    <content src="part0000.html#page-7"/>
  </pageTarget>

So you would include an anchor in part0000.html indicating where page 7 starts as follows:

<a name="page-7"></a>

[philmate]

Thanks tons, Wallcraft. I'll give it a try. Phil

[philmate]

@wallcroft:

I tried it and couldn't get the result. But I think I'm making a mistake in the next step. Could you possibly explain to me how to render the (various) file(s), and how to test them? Can I send the file(s) to my kindle email? Which files? Zipped? Or should upload the file(s) to KDP? I'm sorry to be a nuisance asking dumb questions, but I can't seem to find the answers by looking at either the Amazon site or the forums.

[philmate]

The real page number navigation feature is still eluding me. There IS a need for it, I think, for being able to cite passages from academic books that have previously been published on print.

Kindle Direct Publishing will add real page numbers after uploading onto KDP, but only in defined circumstances, which do not appear to include books that have already gone out of print. That's a pity, because one might expect that to be a common reason for wanting to publish an ebook version.

I have added a pageList section to the NCX file and anchors in the source file, but no luck so far. The NCX and APNX entries in the Wiki give a helpul lead, but they don't explain how to get to the end result in a practical way.

If anyone has any practical success in getting that to work, it would be great to hear about it here.

Phil

[kundor]

Philmate,
I really don't know anything about it, so sorry if you're way past this. But I think you have to include the ncx file in the ePub file (add it to the zip archive), include it in the manifest, "reference it in the spine toc attribute", and replace the content pages with your modified ones with anchors. Then you feed the modified ePub file to the command-line kindlegen program.

Note that the wiki says "KindleGen version 1.2 does not generate an APNX file directly; it creates a PAGE section in the MobiPocket file which is then stripped and converted to an APNX file by Amazon's publishing service. The KindleGen input can use either a NCX pageList or page-map xml.

Kindle Previewer, as of version 1.5, does not display page numbers. In addition, Kindle for PC and Kindle for Mac, while they do display page numbers using .apnx files, are unable to read them from a MobiPocket file generated by KindleGen. This makes testing the page number feature somewhat problematic for publishers."