Quote:
Originally Posted by carol0525
I solved the issue of kindle books lacking page quite easily. I do Not Buy kindle books. I spend admittedly way too much monthly on books ($300-400). I won't buy kindle until they have page numbers. Yes, you can say I'm old fashioned. I don't care. It's a convenience, comfort for me. I'm sure Amazon doesn't miss me.
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I'm sure that they won't, but--what's the reasoning here? I'm not typecasting this as old-fashioned, but if much of your consumption is fiction/literature, may I ask why you care about page numbers? Given that there isn't a device still standing that doesn't have bookmarking, both manual and automatic, highlighting, etc.? Why does this bother you?
I'd also note that surely, you've noticed that a number of K books now feature "real page numbers," even though those are fairly useless. Do you care, really, if a page number says "48" versus 1213? Each screen (page) on a Kindle book has a new location number, in sequence, from start to finish, just like a print book. Why is using page numbers that are slightly different than what you are accustomed to unacceptable?
Quote:
Originally Posted by crich70
The problem with page #'s is that they are dependent on how many pages there are in a given book, and that depends at least in part on the size and type of the font that is being used. In one font/size a book may have 50 pages for example but that same book may have 75 pages in a slightly larger font or 35 pages in a slightly smaller font. So how can having a page numbered be a real help? I grant you that having a page # is useful in paper books such as when a teacher tells the class to turn to a particular page in a textbook but with ebooks it isn't as stable a measure.
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Exactly this. We make books day in, day out. We've made more than 3,000 books in the last few years. When we do non-fiction that has indices, we'll create "real page numbers." Now, there's only one decent way to do this. We embed an invisible target, at the exact same location as the original top-of-page. That target is something like this "page_20." Then, if the user wants to look up elements from the index, we've created links that go to those same tops-of-pages. Functionally, it's the same as how a print index works. You look in the index, you click a link, and you're taken to the original page.
However, the difference in how this works is, in a print book, you put your thumb/finger in the index, you see the page number, you flip to it, and you skim the page with your eyes. You find the relevant text; you read it, and then you flip back to the index.
But in an eBook, it's a bit different. A printed book page will take up anywhere from 3-5 "pages" (screens) in an eBook. That means that when you click the link, and you leap to the top of the original page. But then, you may have to scroll through 2, 3, 4 or even 5 screens, to find what you were seeking.
It's cumbersome at best. Now, the alternative is to link directly to the relevant text--but that makes the target text display in blue (as do all link targets).
There's another issue, regarding the back/forth between indices and the targets, which I've detailed in another thread, here on MR. If anyone's interested, I'll look it up and link it here. I doubt anyone is.
Question--those of you saying that you won't buy or read Amazon books, due to lack of page numbers--do you buy/read ePUBs? From B&N, or ...? The reason I ask is, the faux page numbers created by ADE-based/originated aren't any more "real page numbers" than are the Location numbers that are created and displayed on a Kindle device.
So, if you are buying and reading ADE-based eBooks, are those more acceptable because they limit their page numbers to 3 digits, basically? Or...why are those books, with their faux page numbers, more acceptable than Kindle books, with locations? I'm genuinely curious about this aspect.
Hitch