I was under the impression that .epub can already handle "physical pages" via its toc.ncx file. From
The NCX:
Quote:
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The user will also have the option of navigating to items that do not fit easily into the hierarchical structure of a document, e.g., pages, footnotes, or sidebars. This function is provided by pageList (for pages) and navList (for all other non-hierarchical objects).
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This does not solve how to come up with pages, but it does provide a standard way to reference them in the e-book.
I would really like e-book readers to use physical (normative?) page numbers, e.g. in their navigation bar, when they are available. Since on small screens the e-book page count gets too large to be useful.