Quote:
Originally Posted by detayls
It's 2016!
Kindle Page Numbers have been a thing for years!
Are you are grumpy as I am about lazy publishers not doing the single hour of work that is involved in adding real page numbers based on the most recent or most popular printed edition?
Let's have a Poll!  |
You think it takes solely an HOUR? We just did 4 conversions from PDF. In order to ensure that all the internal x-refs worked (there were dozens of pages of indices, myriad tables containing references and image captions), we embedded the "page number" for each section of text that matched the PDF that we were given. This may, or may not, match the printed book. If there's solely ONE, you understand. If, like many non-fiction books, there are myriad versions, well...that's just too bad, isn't it?
To make those internal references work, we have to embed an id, that looks like this:
Code:
<a id="page12"></a>
So that the text references will go where they are--sorta--intended to go. So that if there's an image caption that says, "see this about that, p.12," we can create a link for the p.12 text, and link it to the id, you see above. This particular book only had 162 pages; but we've done them with 800 pages. It's not an hour's work. It's more. (Plus checking, double-checking, etc.)
Now, of course--the sentence or item on the old Page 12 that may contain information that's of use to the new reader may now be 1, 2, 3 or more "page flips" away from the location of that ID number, because those "page numbers" are based on page "print" size--say, 5.5x8, or one of those.
The same thing is true of the thousand-plus index items at the rear. We'll get them
somewhat in the vicinity...but not closer than that.
There's no good, systematic and cross-platform way to do this, with "page numbers." John Doe may have a hardcover, Susie Smith the mass-market PPBK, and Janie January the trade PPBK. And then, of course, there are Library versions. Whose book will match? Which version will be used to create the faux page number IDs?
If we add it based on the most popular version-what if it's not the most recent? And vice-versa?
There is, currently, no really great way to insert "page numbers" for the purposes of footnoting, annotating, and the like. A competent way would be to use the Kindle's Location numbers for external work, as they are far more precise than page numbers will
ever be.
This doesn't even address the challenges of putting in glossaries or indices that have entries with many-to-one scenarios, e.g., one item of text in the body of the book has multiple index entries going TO it. The blithe assumption that, of course, EVERYONE has a back button isn't correct; "everyone" doesn't have a back button. That means that the bookmaker and the publisher have to figure out HOW on earth they'll get John Doe researcher from the leap to an entry (that has multiple index entries pointing TO it) back to where he was in the Index.
It's just not as simple, in terms of mechanics and implementation and user-friendliness, as people seem to think it is. As I said earlier, Location #'s, from Amazon, are far more accurate and less fungible than paper "page numbers."
FWIW.
Hitch