Ebook conversion services inserting virtual page numbers?

[Simons Mith]

While ebooks may not really have pages, physical books do, and I found that when I used a print->ebook conversion service, the conversion company would insert internal <a name="pagexxx"> tags inside the ebook, so that they could relate physical pages in the print version to the corresponding parts of the ebook. This would presumably help with tracking down errors on a particular physical/virtual page.

I'm curious to know: is that a common practice? We used one company for almost all our conversions so I only have one data point. Might it be worth 'faking' internal page refs on an ebook which happens to be electronic first, but which might become a print version (well, pdf) later?

[theducks]

Right up top (or bottom), they HAVE a real page number they can simply convert to a less intrusive format as the process the page scan.

Some books include a page-map.xml file to help readers reference the printed counterpart

[Simons Mith]

I'm not sure what you mean. When you say 'they HAVE a real page number' are you referring to the physical page numbers (as on the to-print PDF we would supply to them)?

An embedded <a name> [correction, <a id="page_xxx"/> - I misremembered] tag is pretty unobtrusive - only shows up when you read the page code, right? (Now that I've remembered the tag correctly anyway :-)

I thought these hidden tags seemed like a useful and reasonable thing to do. Has no-one else encountered them?

Meanwhile I am going to look at the page-map.xml format to see if that might be useful to me.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Simons Mith

I'm not sure what you mean. When you say 'they HAVE a real page number' are you referring to the physical page numbers (as on the to-print PDF we would supply to them)?

Or matching a specific edition of the pbook.

Originally Posted by Simons Mith

I thought these hidden tags seemed like a useful and reasonable thing to do. Has no-one else encountered them?

I've run into those IDs and a matching list in the ePUB3 naviation document. The last one I ran into was in a book that my spouse picked up as a paperback and then decided to pick up the ebook as well. Sadly the page numbers did not match though looking at the hardcover edition at the local Chapters, the numbers did match for the few pages I checked.

Originally Posted by Simons Mith

Meanwhile I am going to look at the page-map.xml format to see if that might be useful to me.

You might want to check the ePUB 3.2 spec for the navigation document and specifically for 5.4.2.3 The page-list nav Element.