Kindle Page Numbers

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by 3rdDegree

I guess my question is well below the technical quality of the above ones. Will Kindle books now be able to operate like iBooks? That is, recalculate pages based on font and text size. Also show number of pages to end of chapter?

If I understand you correctly the answer is no. The page numbers generated for the Kindle will be the same regardless of what size font you choose within your reader. IOW, increasing font size on your reader will not change the page numbering.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by 3rdDegree

I guess my question is well below the technical quality of the above ones.

Questions don't have to be technical I only ask / hope they are well written. Also, preferably not asked multiple times.

Originally Posted by 3rdDegree

Will Kindle books now be able to operate like iBooks? That is, recalculate pages based on font and text size.

No. The page numbers are fixed based on location within the file The font and text size have no bearing the the numbers. The design of the APNX is to provide page numbers that correspond to a printed book's pages. The do not look at or account for the screen size or how much text is visible on the screen at a given time.

Originally Posted by 3rdDegree

Also show number of pages to end of chapter?

No. I don't see a technical way to achieve this either. From what I know about the APNX file this is not a feature.

Originally Posted by 3rdDegree

Obviously this type of page numbering has no bearing on the page numbers from the printed book.

The goal of the APNX is to map to pages in a printed book. So the page numbered X will in the Kindle version will start with the same text as the corresponding print version at page X. No matter the font, text size or screen size.

That said Amazon is the only one with the necessary information to map to a print book. Calibre doesn't have that information so it tries (multiple ways) to make a page roughly the length of what you would have if you printed it the size of a paper back book.

[kiwidude]

I think it is great that user_none etc has made the effort to add this so quickly, well done.

However unless I am missing something I see the only value this feature has is to give a user a rough mental guide as to how many relative "pages" various books on your device may have.

The only additional value Amazon's implementation of page numbers offers is to researchers/students who want to specify a reference, which of course this Calibre feature could at best only roughly estimate.

What Amazon keep avoiding is reflected in the questions by 3rdDegree and mirror my own desires of a "page turn" number which actually has meaning to the rest of us who read books on the Kindle. I could care less about the number of pages in the printed book. What I do care about is how many more times I have to click the next page button to get to the end of the book, or as 3rdDegree has said the end of the chapter. This "page turn" number should reflect the font sizes etc.

I apologise if I am digressing - of course it is not a Calibre issue nor in any way possible to implement. It is an Amazon/Kindle one. I just find it interesting the approach that Amazon have taken in response to lots of us bleating about what a nonsense "location numbers" were.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

my own desires of a "page turn" number which actually has meaning to the rest of us who read books on the Kindle.
~~~
What I do care about is how many more times I have to click the next page button to get to the end of the book, or as 3rdDegree has said the end of the chapter. This "page turn" number should reflect the font sizes etc.

This is a feature of LRF files on the Sony devices. When they went to ePub this went away. Having used both, I much prefer to have an estimated number of pages than how many more screens are left till the end of the book. Since I use a larger font because of my older eyes. The difference was huge. the epub would say 450 pages the lrf file would say 3800 more turns or screens. I just could never wrap my head around the 3800 number and my brain hurt less with the 450 page number. But that's just me.

I think Amazon adding a print page number feature is great for students and user_none implementing a pseudo numbering system is also a great benefit for many users who have expressed a desire for such a feature.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

This is a feature of LRF files on the Sony devices. When they went to ePub this went away. Having used both, I much prefer to have an estimated number of pages than how many more screens are left till the end of the book. Since I use a larger font because of my older eyes. The difference was huge. the epub would say 450 pages the lrf file would say 3800 more turns or screens. I just could never wrap my head around the 3800 number and my brain hurt less with the 450 page number. But that's just me.

Very interesting - I'm very new to ereaders so haven't looked at what the others do in this regard. That Sony didn't make an effort to bring the feature forward clearly says "something" - either people hated it or there are technical issues in implementing it.

I guess you don't know until you try it. From years of paperback reading I have become ingrained of walking the tightrope of "do I finish this book before I go do something" or "can I get to the end of the chapter before I fall asleep". I agree in your case a number like 3800 representing the size of a book would take some wrapping your head around. However knowing I have an end point coming up in 2 pages versus one in 15 can be life or death for not getting yelled at sometimes

[Zeebra]

Originally Posted by user_none

No. And the ISBN doesn't matter because APNX generated by calibre does not map to a print version. The only page mapping infomation to prints edition is not made publically avaliable by Amazon. The only way to get an APNX that maps exactly to aprint edition is to buy the book from Amazon.

Hm, I understand that you're using your own method to generate the APNX file, but since Calibre is generating the file when you initiate a transfer of the book from your computer to the Kindle, isn't it possible to give the user a button or menu option that says "generate APNX" which will save that file to the harddrive? I don't use Calibre to transfer my books to the Kindle, only to convert other formats to mobi. Just wondering if that's possible.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by Zeebra

... isn't it possible to give the user a button or menu option that says "generate APNX" which will save that file to the harddrive?

Yes it is possible. This type of request, being so niche, would be best implemented as a GUI plugin. I would put a request in the sub forum and see if anyone is interested in creating it.

[Zeebra]

Originally Posted by user_none

Yes it is possible. This type of request, being so niche, would be best implemented as a GUI plugin. I would put a request in the sub forum and see if anyone is interested in creating it.

Thanks I've added a post to the "plugin ideas" thread. Thanks for your feedback!

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by user_none

Yes it is possible. This type of request, being so niche, would be best implemented as a GUI plugin. I would put a request in the sub forum and see if anyone is interested in creating it.

It might be more popular than you think. Kindle for PC now does page numbers, and I guess write to disk would be the way to manage K4PC via Calibre.

[elborak]

Not knowing Calibre's internals, how difficult would it be to have it support either Adobe's non-standard page-map extension or NCX/pageList so that actual physical page numbers from an EPUB could be preserved in APNX when converting to MOBI?

[DaleDe]

Wow this is really cool. Would it be possible to apply the same algorithm for more accurate page numbers to the page map feature that ADE supports for ePUB? You can read about the page map feature in our wiki under ADE.

Dale

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Wow this is really cool. Would it be possible to apply the same algorithm for more accurate page numbers to the page map feature that ADE supports for ePUB? You can read about the page map feature in our wiki under ADE.

Dale

This algorithms is not directly portable to EPUB. This algorithm relies on specifying a character offset, which works for MOBI, but in EPUB you can only use HTML anchors, not character offsets.

[lbik]

The Only place where I can see someting with pagenumbers ist the GOTO menu. When I read a book there is no pagenumber on the screen.
Is it right that the pagenumber only appears in the GOTO menu ??

[DMSmillie]

If the book is one of those that has the page numbers file, you will see the page number when you press the MENU button while reading the book. While the menu is displayed, both page numbers and locations numbers will be displayed just above the progress bar at the bottom of the screen.

In addition, this now applies to location numbers regardless of whether page numbers are present or not - they now only get displayed while the menu is displayed. This appears to be in response to all those who complained that having location numbers visible all the time was too distracting.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by lbik

The Only place where I can see someting with pagenumbers ist the GOTO menu. When I read a book there is no pagenumber on the screen.
Is it right that the pagenumber only appears in the GOTO menu ??

You have to have the 3.1 pre-release firmware installed to see page numbers.