Has anyone suggested this method of page numbering?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by wannabee

You answered your own question. (bold is mine)

I would still be inclined to use hyperlinks, in addition to whatever workaround you come up with to enhance reading on devices that don't support them properly. Otherwise it is a least-common-denominator approach which will not be so attractive to the people using capable systems. And actually, I would not even worry about the incapable systems, they are going to die off soon enough, because that's probably not the only way they are 'unfit'.

That said, you might check out the 'ebook ninjas podcast' @ ebookninjas.com - I want to say episode 27/27b or maybe 23. There was some discussion of a sort of 'biblical' reference system, book/chapter/verse etc. — generalized in such a way that it could give a 'universal', format-neutral way of referencing a location. The reading system would be able to reveal/hide these references on demand, and allow some way to directly navigate. Of course it is all hypothetical, nobody has implemented such a system.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

Couldn't you just simply number paragraphs within a chapter, say ? ( Chapter 7, para 47 )

Text would have to be numbered, naturally.

I think this would be the best solution as long as the paragraph numbers can be hidden or unhidden as needed and are able to be accessed by the user. Unlike pages, the paragraph numbers should not vary depending on the page size. The only problem I can forsee is if there is disagreement on the definition of a paragraph.

[carpetmojo]

[QUOTE=wannabee;1554287]thankyou - that's what I've suggested in my original post. Although the numbers might get too intrusive, but I may have to resort to it.


Sorry Wannabee - I thought what you were suggesting was more complicated than just Chapter and para. With me sadly being a tech-dunce, it sounded it !

Solitaire picks up the main points that would need to be sorted........

1) Hiding the relevent numbers until needed - there must be a whiz out there with the skill to devise a scheme, I'm sure. I won't understand it, but most everyone else will !
2) And I think the para definition on new works would probably rest with the author/editor? I presume existing doc's would need to be dealt with by the user through some programme or other - perhaps assign numbers during first reading ? Perhaps a process along Sony bookmarking lines ?

But I only offer a "Dummies" solution - I haven't a clue as to how it would be put into practice !

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I think this would be the best solution as long as the paragraph numbers can be hidden or unhidden

Hide and seek numbering sounds good. I wonder how that could be accomplished with code rather than hardware? Can you use IF and THEN commands in ePub I wonder? I'll go and have a look.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I think this would be the best solution as long as the paragraph numbers can be hidden or unhidden as needed and are able to be accessed by the user. Unlike pages, the paragraph numbers should not vary depending on the page size. The only problem I can forsee is if there is disagreement on the definition of a paragraph.

Originally Posted by wannabee

Hide and seek numbering sounds good. I wonder how that could be accomplished with code rather than hardware? Can you use IF and THEN commands in ePub I wonder? I'll go and have a look.

One option is to use styles to hide/display paragraph numbers. OpenOffice.org and StarOffice have this option in both the paragraph styles and the character styles. You can mark the paragraph numbers (or any text) with a character style (say "Paragraph Number"), and then hide the text when it's not needed.

I don't know how hard it would be to add this to the EPUB standard (if it isn't already part of it), but since the OpenDocument Text format (the format used by StarOffice/OpenOffice.org) and EPUB are both XML based it should be possible. Then it would require ebook readers to implement the change, such as an option in the global settings.

[DJHARKAVY]

I'm pretty sure that epub page numbers remain fixed, regardless of font size.

[elcreative]

They do... if font made larger so page no longer fits a single screen then numbering changes to reflect it... say page 400 is enlarged to three and a half screens then numbering becomes 400, 400, 400, 400-401

Originally Posted by DJHARKAVY

I'm pretty sure that epub page numbers remain fixed, regardless of font size.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by DJHARKAVY

I'm pretty sure that epub page numbers remain fixed, regardless of font size.

I'm not aware of "epub" page numbers. Amazon may have implemented something like that, but I don't see anything like that in the standard. Obviously you can have hardcoded page numbers in your text, but that seems not to be what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by elcreative

They do... if font made larger so page no longer fits a single screen then numbering changes to reflect it... say page 400 is enlarged to three and a half screens then numbering becomes 400, 400, 400, 400-401

I am not seing that. Page numbers are calculated by my PocketBook on the fly, and really refer to the number of screens. If I change the font size, e.g., the number changes accordingly.

But to address the original issue, I still think an automatic technical solution would be the way to go. Here's a wild idea: if you create a hash digest of every paragraph (using, I don't know, MD6 or any of the other current hash algorithms) it would be easy to create a unique referrer to every paragraph in your text (actually, to any paragraph, period).

There are some issues that need to be addressed, of course (an additional linebreak, or a comma added will create a completely different hash), a hash table needs to be created before looking up any references, etc. but having access to the text in electronic form I don't think that would be too much of an issue. In a way it's like using hyperlinks, only the author wouldn't have to provide them at the time of writing.

Of course this is not a human-readable solution for the most part, but I don't see why reference management couldn't be automated, too.

[elcreative]

rogue_librarian... the numbers you don't see, for epubs, is due to your reader's firmware not using them... didn't realise you were using a Pocketbook... Sonys actually access the pagination integral to the file...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by elcreative

rogue_librarian... the numbers you don't see, for epubs, is due to your reader's firmware not using them... didn't realise you were using a Pocketbook... Sonys actually access the pagination integral to the file...

No, Sony uses ADE's way of calculating pages numbers bases on the compression and size of the ePub. There is a way with ADE to manually force page numbers. But nobody really uses that. ADE's way of calculating page numbers does not matter the size of the text on screen. So the page numbering you get with ADE is consistent. LRF (for example), changed the page numbering based on the text size.