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FredLx · 03-16-2012, 11:13 PM

I've noticed something that may be of benefit to this plugin's development for the Kindle. I'm not sure if anyone else has looked into this, but the "pageMap":"(1,a,1)" value that is created in the .apnx file for Kindles apparently defines page offsets. I was able to experiment by using a text editor to change the first "1" up to "9" for nine pages of offset at the beginning of a book. Anymore than that and the binary encoded stuff would be pushed out of place (because of the extra digit) and no page count would appear at all on my Kindle. The second "1" after the "a" may be a reverse offset from the end of the book.

These offsets are very useful for not including things at the beginning and end of the book in a "true" page count (things such as table of contents, foreword, copyright notices, etc.). As many may have noticed, some books sold on Amazon.com from large publishers have this feature already.

From my experimenting, I noticed that, after the .apnx is created and I go in and edit it, that the total page count is reduced by the offset I define. So, for example, if you want an offset of five pages at the beginning of a 250 page book (if Chapter 1 begins on page 5), then you need to change the page count to 255 in Calibre in your pages column before using the plugin to make the .apnx. Then you can go in and change the offset to 5 and your total page count will remain the same.

I hope this information can be helpful to this plugin so that any offset value can be defined in the GUI before the creation of the .apnx when exporting to a Kindle. There are also two spaces for defining an ASIN value in the .apnx file which if the capability to define this value in the GUI was added it would be a nice feature.

03-16-2012, 11:13 PM	#268
FredLx Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2012 Device: Kindle	I've noticed something that may be of benefit to this plugin's development for the Kindle. I'm not sure if anyone else has looked into this, but the "pageMap":"(1,a,1)" value that is created in the .apnx file for Kindles apparently defines page offsets. I was able to experiment by using a text editor to change the first "1" up to "9" for nine pages of offset at the beginning of a book. Anymore than that and the binary encoded stuff would be pushed out of place (because of the extra digit) and no page count would appear at all on my Kindle. The second "1" after the "a" may be a reverse offset from the end of the book. These offsets are very useful for not including things at the beginning and end of the book in a "true" page count (things such as table of contents, foreword, copyright notices, etc.). As many may have noticed, some books sold on Amazon.com from large publishers have this feature already. From my experimenting, I noticed that, after the .apnx is created and I go in and edit it, that the total page count is reduced by the offset I define. So, for example, if you want an offset of five pages at the beginning of a 250 page book (if Chapter 1 begins on page 5), then you need to change the page count to 255 in Calibre in your pages column before using the plugin to make the .apnx. Then you can go in and change the offset to 5 and your total page count will remain the same. I hope this information can be helpful to this plugin so that any offset value can be defined in the GUI before the creation of the .apnx when exporting to a Kindle. There are also two spaces for defining an ASIN value in the .apnx file which if the capability to define this value in the GUI was added it would be a nice feature.