12-05-2007, 12:42 PM | #16 |
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Personally, I would hate it if the page numbers changed depending on the font I was using. If they're going to do pages, then IMO the page numbers should be fixed regardless of font even if it meant they didn't correspond to page flips.
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12-05-2007, 03:13 PM | #17 |
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I think that depends on the book, you can't apply that formula universally. Even different print editions of the same book (hardback vs. paperback, or even different paperback layouts) are not always consistent with regard to page numbering.
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12-06-2007, 09:26 PM | #18 |
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Really who cares about page numbers on the Kindle? I just go by the percentage bar (of dots) at the bottom of the screen. At a glance I can see how much I've read and how much is left. I wish the Sony Reader had that...
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12-06-2007, 09:28 PM | #19 |
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yes...that's true.....but in your mind it is good because now u have an idea on the length of everybook...and u can make uniform the theoritical page numbers.
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12-06-2007, 11:37 PM | #20 |
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What I do sometimes is go look at the page # the next chapter starts so I can decide if I should stop reading now or wait till I gett o the next chapter. So in this case, page numbers are very important. I've done this even before electronic reading.
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12-06-2007, 11:56 PM | #21 |
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Even more importantly, what if you want to discuss the book with someone else who is also reading it and need to refer to a certain page.
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12-07-2007, 12:10 AM | #22 |
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If you want to discuss the book, then it would still depend on which edition they had even if you both had print copies. For some that's as simple as the hardback or the paperback. For others, especially classics, there are tons of printings. If you tried to use a page number system on the ebook that was not related to screens, you'd have to decide which version of the print book to use as a reference. At least the Kindle is internally consistent and probably not too hard to estimate. If I know I'm 200 locations in from the start of chapter 4, I can probably get the person I'm talking with to the right point pretty quickly. Speaking of chapters, I'm totally with Jon on that one. I would love it if the Kindle could display easily how many locations to the end of the chapter. I hate stopping my reading in between chapters.
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01-06-2008, 03:26 PM | #23 |
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My wife has been reading on her Kindle a huge amount, and if there's one thing she really doesn't like - it's the useless pagination indication. It's meaningless. The only thing that makes any sense are the dots at the bottom of the screen, and even these mean nothing if you've no idea what page you're on. I WISH Amazon would release a software update to let you just see page numbers. I thought the Sony Reader implementation was much better - showing you what page you're on depending on what font size you're using.
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01-06-2008, 06:10 PM | #24 | |
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Quote:
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01-06-2008, 06:41 PM | #25 | |
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Quote:
And I have a PRS-500. Sheesh. Talk about someone advising you to sell your house because you don't like the toilet bowl in the downstairs bathroom. Sheesh! |
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01-07-2008, 01:47 PM | #26 | |
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Quote:
But once you see it in action, it's clear that the arbitrary but absolute numbering scheme the Kindle uses is just not useful in most cases. I believe the best solution would be to have each book embed page number data so that it decides what a "page" is. Where possible, the page number data should match the paper version of the book. This would give you an absolute system like the Kindle (where people can share page numbers and potentially even match them to a physical paper book), and would also let it display "You are reading page 86 out of 359" which would give most people the psychological anchor that they're currently missing. Currently many Kindle conversions of technical works include cross-references to page numbers from the printed editions, and these could be made useful if the physical book pagination could be captured and re-used. The only downside to this scheme is that a "page" would likely consist of more than one screen's worth of data, so there would be no "page number" that would return you to the exact same Kindle screen full of text. You'd have to search through the ~3 screens worth of text or just read the whole "page". But then all the other paging schemes have similar issues in the presence of variable font size, etc. Z. |
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01-07-2008, 02:35 PM | #27 |
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Another downside to this page numbering system would be determining which edition of a book you referenced for page numbers. With most modern books, that's not too hard. The number of printings are usually fairly few but still >1. With public domain works, you may have dozens of printings out there. So you're still back to the problem of how you refer to a location in a book for the sake of discussion. I think this could actually be helped by Amazon making your location in relation to a chapter more easily accessible. If I know I'm 100 locations into chapter 3, I'm pretty sure I could get you to that point in a pbook really quickly. If the "page" numbers are all over the place from the printed versions, then I'd have to resort to the same method anyway so I haven't really gained anything but a tedious debate and extra work for every book that is converted from print to electronic format. I don't think we need to be making the process harder for publishers. If it's quick, easy and cheap to do, they're more likely to do it.
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01-07-2008, 03:50 PM | #28 |
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I recall having this discussion in another thread where we reached the consensus that for the future paragraph numbering is the way to go. Readersoftware should then have a "reference mode" where it will overlay paragraph numbers on the text for easy reference.
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01-07-2008, 03:52 PM | #29 |
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How biblical. But if it works for a text with that many printings to allow people to study and discuss, seems like a good method.
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02-13-2008, 04:30 PM | #30 |
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The page numbering is the only thing I dislike on the kindle. I like to know how many "next pages" I need to hit before I read the end. I hate click "next page" to find out I am at the end.
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