Sick of Amazon Kindle books without Page Numbers...

[detayls]

It's 2016!

Kindle Page Numbers have been a thing for years!

Are you are grumpy as I am about lazy publishers not doing the single hour of work that is involved in adding real page numbers based on the most recent or most popular printed edition?

Let's have a Poll!

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by detayls

It's 2016!

Kindle Page Numbers have been a thing for years!

Are you are grumpy as I am about lazy publishers not doing the single hour of work that is involved in adding real page numbers based on the most recent or most popular printed edition?

Let's have a Poll!

Not all e-books have paper counterparts.

Now one silly question, what makes you say it would take an hour to put in page numbers? That sounds like a long time.

The main reason for no page numbers is because the reader can adjust the font so one might be on two pages at once or it might take up to ten page turns to do one page.

Oh and even some paper books have different page counts depending on the font the publisher used.

IIRC about 50 locations is a page.

[Sirtel]

No, I'm not grumpy. I like page numbers in my e-books, but I want them based on my own personal settings, not on any print edition. Many of my books don't even have a print edition. So I use the page count plugin in Calibre and I'm perfectly happy with that. I sideload all my books anyway, so it's no chore.

[Dusky Rose]

I just go by the percentage, or scale, or dots... what ever the program I'm reading with shows me. I don't really care if it matches the page count of the physical copy, if there even is one.

I also use Calibre, and check page count there or check Amazon to see what page count they list. But once I start reading the various progress reports work just fine with me.

I have seen where there's the very small page numbers at the side of the text, and I don't like them there. They just feel in the way and don't make sense when I can adjust the font and font size. Then a 'page' doesn't really have much meaning.

[Dazrin]

Page numbers in an ebook really aren't at all necessary for me when reading. I can understand some instances where they would be nice but they rarely apply to me.

I prefer the progress line at the bottom of the screen and a simple percent complete value. Although I would prefer it if the percent was based on actual book content and didn't include things like "bonus" chapters for other books.

Also, even though epubs default to showing a page number (unlike Amazon), it isn't necessarily tied to a specific print edition and defaults to 1 page = 1024 (+/-) characters, so will almost certainly not line up with any printed copy, so this is not an Amazon specific issue.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

IIRC about 50 locations is a page.

I find that 15 locations per page is about average for the books I read.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by detayls

It's 2016!

Kindle Page Numbers have been a thing for years!

Are you are grumpy as I am about lazy publishers not doing the single hour of work that is involved in adding real page numbers based on the most recent or most popular printed edition?

Let's have a Poll!

You think it takes solely an HOUR? We just did 4 conversions from PDF. In order to ensure that all the internal x-refs worked (there were dozens of pages of indices, myriad tables containing references and image captions), we embedded the "page number" for each section of text that matched the PDF that we were given. This may, or may not, match the printed book. If there's solely ONE, you understand. If, like many non-fiction books, there are myriad versions, well...that's just too bad, isn't it?

To make those internal references work, we have to embed an id, that looks like this:

<a id="page12"></a>

So that the text references will go where they are--sorta--intended to go. So that if there's an image caption that says, "see this about that, p.12," we can create a link for the p.12 text, and link it to the id, you see above. This particular book only had 162 pages; but we've done them with 800 pages. It's not an hour's work. It's more. (Plus checking, double-checking, etc.)

Now, of course--the sentence or item on the old Page 12 that may contain information that's of use to the new reader may now be 1, 2, 3 or more "page flips" away from the location of that ID number, because those "page numbers" are based on page "print" size--say, 5.5x8, or one of those.

The same thing is true of the thousand-plus index items at the rear. We'll get them somewhat in the vicinity...but not closer than that.

There's no good, systematic and cross-platform way to do this, with "page numbers." John Doe may have a hardcover, Susie Smith the mass-market PPBK, and Janie January the trade PPBK. And then, of course, there are Library versions. Whose book will match? Which version will be used to create the faux page number IDs?

If we add it based on the most popular version-what if it's not the most recent? And vice-versa?

There is, currently, no really great way to insert "page numbers" for the purposes of footnoting, annotating, and the like. A competent way would be to use the Kindle's Location numbers for external work, as they are far more precise than page numbers will ever be.

This doesn't even address the challenges of putting in glossaries or indices that have entries with many-to-one scenarios, e.g., one item of text in the body of the book has multiple index entries going TO it. The blithe assumption that, of course, EVERYONE has a back button isn't correct; "everyone" doesn't have a back button. That means that the bookmaker and the publisher have to figure out HOW on earth they'll get John Doe researcher from the leap to an entry (that has multiple index entries pointing TO it) back to where he was in the Index.

It's just not as simple, in terms of mechanics and implementation and user-friendliness, as people seem to think it is. As I said earlier, Location #'s, from Amazon, are far more accurate and less fungible than paper "page numbers."

FWIW.


Hitch

[barryem]

I'm always happy to have page numbers but when I read with Moon+ it gives me a percentage as well as a fraction where the numerator is the number of pages into this chapter and the total number of pages in this chapter. I like this a lot better.

Truth is I like a good indication of my location in the book but it's far from critical. It's just nice when it's there.

Barry

[AnemicOak]

Not grumpy here. For me they don't really add anything to my reading experience.

[Jack Torrance]

Meh, 1st world problem.

I noticed my ebooks didn't have page numbers on the first book I read, gave it about 3 seconds of thought and moved on.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I hate locations and like page numbers. However since the Kindle added amount of time left in the chapter or book it's not a big enough deal that I would abandon that author or publisher.

[Josieb1]

Lack of page numbers doesn't bother me at all. I'm happy with time left to read and percentage read.

[JSWolf]

if you want page numbers for all of your eBooks, then I suggest you switch to a Reader that uses RMDSK (ADE). This way all of your eBooks will have page numbers.

[HarryT]

This is not "news". I am baffled by what makes the original poster think that his opinion about Kindle page numbers does constitute "news". Moved to the "General Discussions" forum.

[darryl]

Physical book pages numbers are artifacts of a physical book. They differ even between different formats and editions of print books. They have nothing to do with an actual page of on an ereader. If you want the same page numbers as a physical book, read the physical book. If you want page numbers in your ebooks and don't care whether they relate to any particular issue of the equivalent print book (If there is any equivalent edition) then JSWOLF made a suggestion above, which, hardly surprisingly, would involve you moving to epub. PDF's also are usually replica's of a print book and its layout, but is not the best format for reading ebooks on an ereader.

[Dr. Drib]

In my opinion, this is about as important as whether or not to use 999 grains of sugar in one's morning cup of coffee. Or to use 1000 grains...or 768.

If I had to worry about page numbers in a book, I think I would probably kill myself.....perhaps twice...just to make certain I succeeded.