[Hitch]

Originally Posted by darryl

Hitch and eschwartz. As happens regularly, I find myself in agreement with both of you.

Of course! With great intelligence comes the great responsibility of agreeing with other mental giants around you. <snicker>.

Spoiler:

Sorry, I'm just having a whacky day.

So-called "real" page numbers are meaningless. In an epub or mobi type ebook where the reader has some control over attributes like the font size, page numbers are arbitrary and just one of any number of means of giving the reader some idea of their progress. As DiapDealer pointed out, there is no need for this to even be visible at all times, though preferences will vary.

I've always thought that having a calculation, if it could be put in the firmware, so you could push a button (tap, whatever) asking "how much time left in chapter," or "how many pages remaining," or something, would be more useful than the print page number/location/ADE page number kerfuffle. OTOH, when I think about that, it starts feeling a little too twee.

The other and more essential purpose served by page numbers was for purposes of reference, citation etc. In EBooks page numbers are once again less than ideal. The problem is not new or unique. In common law legal systems where case law precedents are important citations were traditionally to pages of published law reports, sometimes to a passage as small as a paragraph. When such case law took to the net this became ridiculous and unworkable. This Wikipedia article discusses the various solutions adopted, some themselves far from ideal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_c...utral_citation It may be that we do need some format neutral citation standard for all books. If so, I will leave it for those more informed than myself as to what the best standard may be.

I confess I am replying to this prior to scoping out the Wikipedia article, but I've always thought that IF (and, hooooooooooo boy, is this a pipe dream in this regard) we could get Amazon, iBooks, B&N, etc., to all agree (or...maybe the IDPF???) that a PAGE = X characters, we could cut through a boatload of this s**t. I mean, it is relatively simple, albeit time-consuming to create id's for each new page. And, in fact, if I knew that it was going to be X characters, we could write a clip to do this auto-magically. Then, page X would be the SAME DAMN PAGE on every e-reader. We can't do it with printed pages, because, as pointed out, those are different in each edition, as well.

If TPTB in eBooking could just say, for this ONE purpose--for research, citations, et al, we all concur that a page is equivalent to the character count of 250 words (say, 1250 chars plus X for the usual/typical spaces between words)...how could that be easier? Yes, we'd all have to agree that the count starts with the first word of the first chapter, or something, but still...that would solve a crapload of problems in citations. I think, sometimes, about people trying to have a coherent discussion with Peter on an iPad, Joe on an iPhone, Suzie on a B&N Color HD, Janie on an older Nook color, and Fred (of course it's Fred) on a Kobo Aura, or whatever. What a damn nightmare.

Right now, you have to agree on the "printed version" numbering, and go from there. bookmakers like me have to go in and plug in the page number ID's at the commencement of each page, based on what the INDD export pumps out, OR, manually, if we're going from PDF.

It's ridiculous. This is one of those topics that really makes my blood boil because it would be bloody easy to solve. AND, the agreement wouldn't "hurt" anyone, because *everyone* would be accommodating it, as no one currently is using that mechanism. No one of the retailers would be lording it over the others--they could all whine about it equally. The very definition of compromise! :-)

</mini-rant>

Hitch