09-01-2009, 02:28 PM | #61 | |
The Introvert
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All books created by me with a base font 10, I divide by 1.5 and it is a hard back edition length. |
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09-01-2009, 02:33 PM | #62 | ||
The Introvert
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Quote:
Abecedary Quote:
Last edited by astra; 09-01-2009 at 02:35 PM. |
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09-01-2009, 02:40 PM | #63 |
Wizard
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On the kindle, I press go to location, and note the relative distance. Rough, but it works.
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09-01-2009, 04:02 PM | #64 |
Member
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Word count really doesn't work.
"Hey, check out words 2,388 to 2,902!" instead of "check out pages 24, 25 (medium font setting)" "Crap, my bookmarks got deleted... what page was I on? oh wait, no pages, just words... I was on word 5000... maybe..." So yeah, for a holistic "how large is this book?" then word counts may work, but not for anything else. |
09-01-2009, 04:06 PM | #65 |
Zealot
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First of all page numbers are completely moronic. Pages are different sizes and with different margins and different font sizes and different spacings etc, so they are extremely misleading both in p and e. The only reason for having "page" numbers in e is because people are used to them, no matter how misleading they are.
So what alternatives do we have? We have (at least) paragraph counts, word counts and character counts, with SI prefixes (e.g., "3 kchars" = "3000 chars"). I very strongly prefer character count, because it properly reflects the real size, and works well with different languages (and with different use patterns within the same language). E.g., what might be said with 15 words in Swedish or English might be said in 7 words in Finnish, but the latter are longer. (E.g., "med min bil" in Swedish ("with my car" in English) is "autollani" in Finnish.) |
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09-01-2009, 04:08 PM | #66 | |
Liseuse Lover
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Even in printed books you'd have to refer to a specific edition to use "page" in a meaningful way. Eventually, we'll just tell our reading system to send your reading system the link/bookmark. Until then, we'll have to make do with "that part with the blue one, next to the fish, about halfway through". |
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09-01-2009, 04:09 PM | #67 | |
cybershark
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if we dont like refrencing word number we could just start saying look at word 23k to 29k (need a term for this. word count page(wcp), maybe vtral page(vp)) ha look at this book wcp23-29. im on wcp 30 right now. |
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09-01-2009, 04:18 PM | #68 | ||
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Sure it does.
Quote:
How about "Hey, check out kwords 6.0-6.3!" (or "Hey, check out hwords 60-63!", which is exactly the same)? Quote:
Wrong. They work as well or better than pages in every way I can imagine. |
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09-01-2009, 08:38 PM | #69 |
Technogeezer
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For me word count has always been a better indicator of the length of a book than pages or weight. Then again there are books where the prose is so thick that even 10 pages will seem like 100,000 words. Pages as a measure is flawed because it is only valid if all books have the same font at the same size with the same leading on the same page form and with the same margins.
One of my jobs back in high school was working as a typesetter (yes, hand set type.) The printer specialized in limited run fine poetry books. The paper was also high quality. If we printed 500 of a book it was considered a long run. There will always be a market for this type of book. The skills of typesetting and fine printing will not go away. The printing in most mass market books and many trade books is cheap. ("Cheap" used as a quality designator, not a price designator.) The type and margins are scaled to fit a folded folio number of pages to keep costs down. The fonts are low quality designed to survive the questionable ink and rough paper used in their production. Textbooks however, generally utilize quality fonts and high grade paper. Most have a superior binding designed to survive hard use. The worst offenders I have found were the computer books. (Note: O'Riley books are not included in this grouping.) Many of them were written in haste and then the page layouts were done by someone that did not have a clue as to the content of the text. Add to this the selection of a "hip" font that causes eye strain after a page or two and you have a winning combination. With e-books I have been able to change the base font to one that I like and is easy on my eyes. The Dutch font Sony shipped with the PRS-500 Reader is a fine font (and a better font than Times New Roman that shipped with Windows or the Times font that comes with Mac.) I am not sure what options I have or will have with ePub but that is in the future for me, not the present. Using an electronic reader I can judge a book by its merits without being distracted by a madman graphic designer out to show the world his or her vision of greatness. |
09-02-2009, 11:19 AM | #70 |
Publishers are evil!
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Word Count is like the metric system for Americans.
When someone refers to a book with a 100,000 word count or a 40,000 word count we don't really know what that means. What is the word count of The Old Man and Sea? 20,000? 40,000? How about Atlas Shrugged? 100,000? 200,000? I don't have a clue. If we used this system all the time we would get used to it, and it may be better than the current system, but right now it would be like asking me to use liters, grams, and millimeters when I think in terms of gallons, ounces, and inches. Last edited by Daithi; 09-02-2009 at 11:22 AM. |
09-02-2009, 11:23 AM | #71 | |
Zealot
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Quote:
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09-02-2009, 11:31 AM | #72 | |
Zealot
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09-02-2009, 11:36 AM | #73 | |
Groupie
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You are not alone =)
Quote:
150***----200 010******-002 The top line shows that you've read 150 "screen pages" (at the current font size) The astericks represent the "full" (read) portion of the progress bar, and the dashes represent the empty (unread) portion. The number on the left represents the number of "screen pages" left. The lower bar is the same, but it represents current chapter/section progress. I put zeros before the smaller numbers only for the sake of aligning the bars, but in practice this shouldn't be necessary. |
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09-02-2009, 12:51 PM | #74 | |
frumious Bandersnatch
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Quote:
If you don't want to open it, in the header area, on top of the page, there are two bars, the top one the whole page width and has a dark portion that grows larger as you progress on the book; the bottom one is made out of constant-size blocks, each of them represents a page of the current chapter, each block is darkened as you turn to the next page. |
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09-02-2009, 12:53 PM | #75 |
Technogeezer
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My Sony shows a page count (x of y) at the bottom for the font size selected. The Mobipocket Reader on my Palm equipped cell phone has a progress bar along the bottom for the one font size available.
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