Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleDe
The considered system and the present is colliding fast. We do need to fix this in epub I believe. I think the epub standard could have a meta file with the data in it to match page numbers for the real book and some standard proposed eBook sizes. This would allow scholarly research and improve the reading experience for eBook reader who want to know how many pages are in the book, what page they are on and when the next chapter starts. All can be accomplished with a pre-pagination file that is in the mix of files in the standard already. This would be an index like file that cross referenced page boundaries to xhtml files and locations in the files.
Dale
|
I agree that the epub folks need to address this and other issues. I like your idea of a meta file. There is nothing preventing its incorporation into an existing epub. However, as the standard doesn't address this issue, the use of this data would be entirely dependent on how or if the reader made use of it.
As to predefined page sizes, that somewhat negates the benefits of a reflowable format and still ties us to the archaic concept of a page. Besides, you might read a particular epub on anything from a smart phone, to a 22 inch widescreen monitor. When you add in the different font sizes that might be used for reading, it adds up to a lot of combinations. And if only a certain subset of these combinations was in the specification, that also limits what you can do with a reflowable format.