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Old 09-02-2009, 04:56 PM   #94
msundman
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Device: FBReader on Android
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyMartin View Post
And one day in the future someone will be reading a book and will wonder. "What the hell is a page and why is my book measured in them?" A bit like cars and horsepower.
Yes, exactly. There are many different definitions of "horsepower", and thus the definition is related to the context in which the term is used. This is very similar to pages in books (e and p), since they are also defined differently in different contexts. Both are very bad, for mostly the same reasons.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyMartin View Post
It might not be accurate but I use file size as a guide. I like books of around a MB.
Unfortunately file size is extremely misleading. I would consider it even worse than page count, because at least the reader can see the variables that affect the page count, but the file size is affected mostly by details related to the file format. E.g., in some xml-based e-book format (I'm sure there are many) the file size of a book might be 700% as large with indented XML in UTF-32 than with unindented XML in UTF-8, and yet the two versions use the very same file format and to the reader both versions look exactly the same (except for very different file sizes).
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