Quote:
Originally Posted by Doitsu
What about KF8 Kindle books with "real page numbers" (APNX). Don't you define them with Pagelists in NCX files, too? (Last time I checked KindleGen didn't support ADE pagemaps.)
@OP: You can create fixed layout ebooks, but this somehow defeats the purpose of eBooks with reflowable text. BTW, no matter which format you choose, you can assume that someone has found a way to circumvent whatever copy protection mechanism that you intend to implement. |
Hey, Doits:
Yes, you can. Crazy people can. (Did I say that aloud?). But it's the same thing; it's a massive,manual process, and each listed item/entry/page has to be referenced back/linked back to the "top of the page." If you have large groups of people all working from differing format books, and using (say), outdated study guides, all of which say something like "beginning at the top of page 54, read the next 5 sections," then I suppose using this makes sense.
However, in most cases, by the time you've done all the work to create a Pagelist, (which cannot be read in most ePUB2 devices, IIRC, so now we're really going down the rabbit hole), you could
just as easily have created a cross-referenced study guide, by putting the same 5-6 words, or sentence, you were going to have to search for, in order to create the entry link anyway, in some type of reference table. Do you see what I mean? It seems to me that if you have myriad editions, then the simpler plot is to create a table, put the original reference cites ("top of page 54" or what-have-you) in one cell and the text from the relevant sentence/fragment, whatever, in the next, so people with devices can search on it, regardless of which edition of the digital version they have. This would work across PDF's, ePUBs, MOBI, etc. A Pagelist in one edition/version of one digital format wouldn't do that, and I don't see the workload as being one iota different...perhaps even less to create the table.
Not to mention--anyone with a word-processor can create the cross-reference table, as opposed to needing skilled bookmakers to create an ePUB Pagelist or MOBI APNX. There's significant cost-savings right there.
Plus, the other parts of the OP's post throw me a bit--reflowable versus "static" and the whole "too easy to copy" thing about PDF's. I don't think that the OP has done enough research on the topic in general to understand the issues involved on all fronts--reflowable versus static formats/references, the costs for the latter; the doing of the latter; why PDF and ePUB, etc., are all as easily copyable as the next...lots of ground to cover. And that list of formats--I mean, hell, that list is nearly older than dirt these days. This isn't a criticism of the OP; it's an observation. He needs more background information, and some interaction with ePUBs, etc., in order to get a feel for what's what, (use a real device and the like) so that he has a better grasp on the questions to ask for the issue, to assess solutions that might meet his need--if any exist.
Hitch