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View Poll Results: How important are page numbers in Kindle Books? | |||
Very important - I tend to avoid those books and forget the author |
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16 | 8.56% |
Nice to have - I use them if they are there |
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57 | 30.48% |
Not important at all - get over yourself. |
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114 | 60.96% |
Voters: 187. You may not vote on this poll |
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#166 | ||||||||
Wizard
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Edit Note: Turns out in the few hours I had the tab open and typed up this post, a lot more posts were made. I will have to read/absorb/incorporate those in a later post. Sorry if I missed you or your insights.
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Many people use the word page to refer to "physical pages", while others mean "screens" (as in what text shows up on the screen of their device), and others are using it to mean the auto-calculated number of "pages" by ADE/Kindle. In this case, MikeB1972 clearly meant the ADE-case. Quote:
A few times I was told by professors that the 3- or 4-word method is unwieldy, but I don't see much difference between saying: "Turn to page 123" and "Turn to page 123, where he says, 'the wind blew westward'." Students reading (that specific version) the physical book spend time turning to 123, and the digital students search for "the wind blew" or "the wind blew westward". Everyone reaches the same spot whether they have Physical/EPUB/MOBI/PDF/HTML/whatever! Quote:
Ebooks typically go through a handful of minor versions (such as fixing a few typos, fixing a broken link, fixing CSS, compressing images, [...]), medium overhauls (inserting higher quality images), or they may go through major overhauls (cleaning up a ton of absolutely crappy code... which is what I do in many cases). To my knowledge, specific versions of ebooks are not marked in any sort of standard way, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of hashed database of different versions of ebooks (and heaven forbid the big publishers would ever pull something like this. This isn't even bringing into the discussion of DRM mucking up hashing systems). Even between stores, there may also even be tiny variations and differences between the same formats (Smashwords might run it through their "Meatgrinder", B&N might strip out a few CSS for no good reason, Amazon might strip out fonts, iTunes may need a tiny xml file for enabling fonts, maybe some other store does a Calibre conversion of your book, one store needs a cover of ###px x ###px, [...]). In my experience, there are definitely many more minor variations of ebooks than their physical counterparts. Side Note: I have even seen books go backwards in quality in later versions (in the case of "A Song of Ice and Fire" EPUBs that I purchased, the image quality became lower in a later version of the EPUB). I considered this a large downgrade (although they did fix a few typos + fix the CSS). Quote:
![]() ADE page numbers are only good across ADE-based devices, just as Kindle page numbers are only correct based on Kindle-based ereaders. Problems occur when you want to leave that specific ecosystem. If you try to Kindle -> ADE, ADE -> Kindle, ADE -> other EPUB readers (there are a ton out there, particularly on Android), EPUB/Kindle -> other digital formats... those "page numbers" become worthless (just as "screen" numbering systems are worthless outside of those devices/settings). I put ADE-numbering + Kindle-numbering in the same category (Byte Methods), and they have the same, although slightly different, pitfalls: Categorization I sort of came up with these categories while brainstorming tonight:
Technical Details on the "Byte Method" According to the MobileRead Wiki: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Adob...s#Page_numbers https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Page...Implementation The ADE automatic "page number" algorithm says each page 1024 compressed bytes and the Kindle goes by every 150 uncompressed bytes. The problem I find with the Byte Methods is that the file may change (maybe more efficient/different code in the backend), but the text itself will not change. As an example, let us look at three different versions of the same paragraph: Example #1: Really bloated code for a single paragraph: Quote:
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Words: 27 Example #1: 3122 bytes Example #1 (Kindle): 20.8 "locations" Example #1 (1024 uncompressed): 3.05 "pages" Example #1 (ADE)*: (rounded up to 1) Example #2: 1186 bytes Example #2 (Kindle): 7.9 "locations" Example #2 (1024 uncompressed): 1.15 "pages" Example #2 (ADE)*: (rounded up to 1) Example #3: 227 bytes Example #3 (Kindle): 1.51 "locations" (rounded up to 2) Example #3 (1024 uncompressed): .22 "pages" Example #3 (ADE)*: (rounded up to 1) * Note: I am not too sure how to calculate the exact compressed byte count calculated by ADE, but they are all less than 1... there is a lot of repeat information in the HTML, and text compresses very well. Pitfall of Byte Counts Let us say in the future, Amazon decides to run their ebooks through a more efficient conversion program (maybe they figure out a way to generate code with less cruft, or maybe they come up with something like KFX did with "better typography", and they run all the old backlog files through the new conversion). Example #2 might occur on a book with a Calibre conversion (the HTML itself might change, but the code will still be functionally equivalent). Or in Example #3 (if I do a major overhaul of the hideous code backend). The "locations" and ADE "page numbers" change, even though the text itself is exactly equivalent (and this is what is important when referencing or reading). People care about the actual DISPLAYED text, not any of that HTML backend. Note: I don't know off the top of my head how HTML comments are handled (or metadata tags such as <title>, <head>, [...]) in the ADE/Kindle methods. Does all of that metadata count? Or is it just what is between <body> tags? I know that MOBI strips out all HTML comments. Last edited by Tex2002ans; 04-05-2016 at 08:14 AM. |
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#167 |
Grand Sorcerer
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FWIW it's worth, my post with "one" was an attempted joke/jab at another discussion about the use of the word "one". Sorry for the obscure reference, I just assumed everyone reads every post and everyone would get the reference/joke/jab.
![]() I hope the OP doesn't mind the OT post.** ![]() ** another reference to an obscure post/thread. ![]() |
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#168 |
Award-Winning Participant
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Nope. But if you perhaps included a link to the thread in that message....
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#169 |
eBook Enthusiast
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Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6
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That would indeed be helpful. Not everyone reads every thread on the board.
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#170 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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For reference books, a page number and edition is probably useful. For fiction, not so much. |
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#171 |
Grand Sorcerer
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The option to do full book page numbering for kepubs was added several firmware versions ago. At the same time, they added other options to display the location as pages, percentage or time to read. And a long press on the page number will change what is displayed. The options are on the second page of the Reading settings.
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#172 |
eBook Enthusiast
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OK, I guess there are people who would want that. Personally I use it for referencing, so I've no requirement to own the corresponding paper edition, but simply to know which paper edition it is. I find it an extremely useful facility. I couldn't use ebooks for academic purposes without it.
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#173 |
Samurai Lizard
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It seems that the issue with page numbers is that they can't be consistent, even on the same ebook on the same ereader, due to ebook formatting issues. Would a viable option be to include a marker (say a vertical bar on a line by itself) to indicate the top of a page, with everything between the bars considered one page regardless of the amount of text it contains (determined by the ebook formatting team)?
This would allow the ebook formatter to clearly indicate where each "page" begins regardless of the way the ebook is formatted. The ebook's formatting options wouldn't matter since the relative position of the "page bar" would be unchanged within the ebook. It would even allow an option for the "page bar" to be hidden if desired by the reader (if hidden the page would be formatted as if the bar didn't exist). |
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#174 |
Ex-Helpdesk Junkie
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That sounds like a very needlessly complicated alternative to simply providing a Page-map or PageList.
Which as has already been indicated, is not the perfect solution it sounds like. In fact, this whole discussion began with someone protesting that ebook publishers aren't using them^^ to curate page numbers -- so why would Yet Another Page Counting Method be any more likely to actually get used? ![]() Last edited by eschwartz; 04-05-2016 at 04:27 PM. |
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#175 |
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#176 | |
Samurai Lizard
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Quote:
As far as composing a post, one option is to compose it in Notepad (if you are a Windows user) and then copy and paste it into the forum. It is also possible that you can do it with your word processor (and paste it as unformatted text to avoid any issues with the text). Then do any needed formatting within the window. |
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#177 | |
Samurai Lizard
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#178 | |
eBook Enthusiast
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#179 | |
Cannon Fodder
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Thanks! |
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#180 | |
Resident Curmudgeon
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Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Page numbers gone in AZW3 books | Katsunami | Calibre | 1 | 09-03-2013 11:25 AM |
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