How big is that e-book anyway?

[msundman]

Originally Posted by Teyrnon

You've made some excellent points and I'm forced to amend my position somewhat. Character counts would be useful.

It's very mature of you to say that.

Back in the day when I first started thinking about "problems" with digital texts I remember that I first of all thought about word numbers(=counts) as the solution for most problems. After considering lots of different scenarios (e.g., how referencing a part of a digital text affects different versions of the same text, including different translations), I actually came to the conclusion that word numbers/counts fall inbetween what seems to be best. Character counts seem to be best for lengths and speeds, whereas a combination of chapter and paragraph numbers seem to work best for references. Also, in practice I'm quite fond of char-% (i.e., in the range 0-100 regardless of the size) for novels, because it seems to give a decent estimate of where in the story I am. So, after starting from "word counts" I ended up pretty much everywhere but.

[Jack Tingle]

My new jetBook has both a percentage counter, and a page X of Y counter. It also has a little black progress thread working vertically down the side of the page. They must have anticipated this thread.

Regards,
Jack Tingle