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Originally Posted by DMSmillie
OK, this is getting confusing - are we talking about what Amazon have implemented, or what we think they should or could have done?  |
I'm taking about why I think what they
have (or say they have) done is pretty useless except in some very specific cases, and why it shouldn't be endorsed by ebook creators (and, in particular, in ePUB, which the Kindle does not read anyway).
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Page references are absolute if they relate to a fixed media/format edition of a book, such as a specific print version. The page numbers now provided for some Kindle ebooks do refer to a particular (print) edition (one would hope the print edition used to provide the content for the ebook version).
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But they are not absolute for the content, which should be what matters. If I want to cite some passage of Huckleberry Finn, saying it's in page 148 is pretty useless; saying it's in page 148 of some particular edition is only useful if you happen to have the same edition. For an ebook, having "page 148" match some printed edition is just as useful as having "page 148" anywhere else. If they want to provide a means of having hard references (independent of font size, margins, etc.) in an ebook, that's OK, but I see no point in trying to reproduce a printed edition (unless it's a fac-simile).
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I'm finding myself in the position of trying to explain what Amazon have implemented, but I'd just like to make it clear that I'm not one of those who wanted, or argued in favour of, "real" page numbers - my posts in previous threads on the subject make that pretty obvious. 
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And I don't want to imply that's what I think. I just replied and quoted your post because it made me think, and then we talk about the matter. We probably agree mostly