[davidfor]

Originally Posted by EldRick

This one is certainly a large-annoyance issue on every Kobo in the world, and is Long overdue for a fix.

If davidfor is correct, and the issue is related to programming stupidity in handling page number boundaries (possible), then a far more appropriate solution would be to deal with the page numbers like my Sony PRS-950, i.e. let text flow to the bottom of the screen and present page numbers as 215/216 when there is a page number break that does not match a screen break.

The page numbering has nothing to do with the gaps at the bottom of the page. To me, this is a problem in the book. And I know that no-one will agree with me, but, I'll explain.

The gap is caused by the settings of the widows and orphans style setting. The "widow" is that last line from a paragraph that appears at the top of the next page. The "orphan" is the solo line at the end of a page. CSS styles support setting the number of lines for both of these. The default is either 2 or 3. Kobo seem to be using 3.

What this means is that if a paragraph goes over the end of the screen, and it has less lines than the sum of the widows and orphans settings, it will be pushed onto the next screen. And there will be a big gap at the bottom of the screen. Exactly how big that gap is depends on a lot of things. As well as the widows and orphans settings, it depends on the font and size, line spacing and margins between paragraphs. And probably some other things.

So, the device is respecting the design of the book. It does this in the same way as it respects the other settings. To me, this is the correct thing to do. The book designer decided to do it this way. At least I hope it was a conscious decision and not that they forgot. Or worse, didn't know they could do this.

Then Kobo programmers can focus their limited attention on returning to the correct paragraph within the book, regardless of font changes and ignore page-numbers for all other purposes than that for which they are useful - displaying page-numbers that match the printed book.

There is no other reason for displaying the page-numbers than to allow readers to match up an e-book with the printed version (and that's only semi-sensible anyway, since publishers will often publish different versions, such as hardback and softback).

However, page numbers are useful in an academic environments for citations and for helping students find the same page when some are using e-readers and some using hardcopy, so you have to show them - just don't let them play any role in setting screen boundaries.

I don't completely agree. The page numbers give a good idea of the position in the book and the length. The percent read is handy, but 50% of "The Cat in the Hat" is a lot different to 50% of "War and Peace".