Pagination on Calibre

[Nabeel]

Dear All,

I'm an academic. I find e-books easy to use and they save on shelve space! But I am encountering one problem.

One big advantage of the ebook format is that I can identify an interesting sentence or two, and then cut and paste it into either a critical text I'm writing, or a handout for students. This is much more convenient than having to copy out the relevant. (I have to stress here I do just mean a sentence or two: I'm not talking about substantial sections.)

I find Calibre ideal for this type of cutting-and-pasting. But...

As an academic, I need to give precise and accurate page references. I'm already a bit worried that on my Sony ereader pagination sometimes looks a bit eccentric. However, on Calibre, pagination just seems completely inaccurate: when a paper book is 250 pages long, the Calibre version often seems to be 600 or 700n pages long.

Am I missing something here? Is there a method for ensuring that the pagination on Calibre corresponds to other published versions?

Any advice welcome!

best wishes,

Nabeel

[DrChiper]

Page numbers means nothing within e-books. Page sizes depend on how the text is rendered, the used font-size, line-space, etc. Hence, they differ from reader to reader.
References therefore must be based on chapter numbers, section identifications, bullet numbers and such to be meaningful. Of course, the e-books you use must support that in their texts.

[theducks]

Or the Paragraph count. that does not change at any flow zoom level.

Chapter N, paragraph 7, (word 42 )

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by theducks

Or the Paragraph count. that does not change at any flow zoom level.

Chapter N, paragraph 7, (word 42 )

Provided you use always the same document version and not a revised version 1.1 with added texts / paragraphs ...

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

Provided you use always the same document version and not a revised version 1.1 with added texts / paragraphs ...

As you point out, the old (page-line) system has been flawed since day 1

And it does you little good if you do not have access to the precise version cited

[eschwartz]

For the record, MLA/APA now officially recommend using chapter/paragraph citation methods when citing an ebook.

If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for your students...


Some ebooks do come with page-mapping data e.g. Kindle's "real page numbers" (APNX) or the EPUB Page-map / PageList.
Note: Many EPUB ereaders will lie and use the Adobe Digital Editions "2048-characters-is-a-page-by-fiat" if no page mapping exists.
calibre can be set to sideload pseudo-random generated page numbers if sideloading books to a Kindle via calibre (I believe this is the default) -- be careful.

When Real Page Numbers for Kindle books exist, Amazon's product page will specify the ISBN of the paper book it matches.
MLA/APA suggests using Real Page Numbers when they exist.