Page Numbers, Percentage, or nothing at all

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by adamslast

I prefere a page with page numbers at footer and book name at header as older fws. But as well as I know there is not a patch provide it. Is there another way to do it?

I don’t believe so, there’s a patch that swaps header and footer but I think it’s a 1:1 swap rather than allowing you to choose which bits go where. It might be possible to do what you want with a not yet made patch but I’d be slightly skeptical.

[forster01]

I used percentages as they are more accurate then anything else, until 4,18. Now i'm using progress bar.

As all can see everything is matter of self preference.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

It seems like we're beating a dead horse here.

And now add in thoughts about time remaining... there are endless possibilities of combinations between percentages, pages, time, chapters, word counts, that make my head hurt. Just use what you prefer and don't belittle anyone for wanting it a different way.

Yes it’s a bit of a dead horse but this is at least 40 posts not made in other threads which were getting derailed with this topic.

I don’t think anyone has belittled anyone else for their preference. We’ve all pointed out flaws in the various existing means of estimating the information presented. And as you say it’s up to us which flaw is more acceptable than the rest.

That and trying to think tank a method without the flaws which have been pointed out. Which I will grant is likely to be tedious bordering on pointless for most folks here. But for some it’s a fun mental exercise or so I like to think.

[adamslast]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

I don’t believe so, there’s a patch that swaps header and footer but I think it’s a 1:1 swap rather than allowing you to choose which bits go where. It might be possible to do what you want with a not yet made patch but I’d be slightly skeptical.

It is exactly as you describe, the patch does not allow to choose. I hope we have a patch in next version for this case.

PS. I just now see at kobopatch request thread there will be a new patch named "Swap reading header/footer " in v54. Good news!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ratinox

The example is not necessarily an illustrated edition of Book A and a non-illustrated edition of Book A, but Book A and Book B where A is illustrated and B is not. Page 32 in both A and B are the same position in physical editions of each book. Faux page 32 is different positions in electronic editions of A and B because neither ADE nor Kepub account for images in their countings.

Sorry, but that's incorrect. A is illustrated. B is not. A has illustrations in each chapter and a full page illustration before each chapter. Lets say that in A page 3 is at the beginning of chapter 2. in B, the start of chapter 2 will not be page 32. It will be a lower page number. And in some cases, A is a different size to B. So that alone will make different page sizes.

I dislike this inconsistency across different books. Counting page turns solves this particular problem but introduces a bunch of others.

Long story short: there is no synthetic page counting algorithm that will work consistently in all cases.

Let's take a book. Two different physical versions will have different page numbers. But the same ePub on different Readers using the ADE page numbers will be the same. That's consistent. If you have a 6" Reader and you buy an 8" Reader and you know the page number you were on, you can go to that page on your new larger Reader. So you can pick up where you left off. Can't do that with 1 page = 1 screen.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

I actually don’t want page numbers at all. I find them pointless on something much more akin to a scroll than a book (especially if the device or app you’ve using allows for swiping up or down etc).

Thankfully with Kobo you can have page number, percent, time left (if you read KePub), or nothing at all. So you can have what you want. Same goes with the header that displays the chapter progress.

[Katsunami]

I use everything.

I have a fixed page count put in by the Count Pages plugin. The Kindle shows this. It also shows percentage and time to read.

The Kobo shows time to read, a screens_read / total_screens count, it has the page count put into the title of the book, and it shows the percentage. And the progress bar.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

some will only want exact page numbers that would match a physical book

I was thinking about mapping a pBooks page numbers to an ePub. A lot of ePub come with page numbers in the code such as <a id="pg_125">. If someone would come up with a plugin to take those page numbers and create a page map then you'd get page numbers that match some pBook version.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I use everything.

I have a fixed page count put in by the Count Pages plugin. The Kindle shows this. It also shows percentage and time to read.

The Kobo shows time to read, a screens_read / total_screens count, it has the page count put into the title of the book, and it shows the percentage. And the progress bar.

I know Calibre can generate a page number file for a Kindle eBook using a fixed end page number. How does that compare to ADE page numbers when both have the same end page number?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Thankfully with Kobo you can have page number, percent, time left (if you read KePub), or nothing at all. So you can have what you want. Same goes with the header that displays the chapter progress.

Yes, I like the choice.

[lkmiller]

Count me as one of those who prefer fixed page numbers. Previously, epubs, kepubs, and even Pocket articles had roughly similar fixed "page" lengths. Now only the epubs still have fixed pages. Would love it if it were possible to patch things to show fixed pages for all again.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Count me as one of those who prefer fixed page numbers. Previously, epubs, kepubs, and even Pocket articles had roughly similar fixed "page" lengths. Now only the epubs still have fixed pages. Would love it if it were possible to patch things to show fixed pages for all again.

Kepubs used to have their own algorithm which counted ~320 words as a page for book but used the number of screens for chapter. Now screens is used for both.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by adamslast

PS. I just now see at kobopatch request thread there will be a new patch named "Swap reading header/footer " in v54. Good news!

That patch moves the book title and book page count from the bottom of the screen to the top. Then the bottom will show chapter and chapter page count. So it still may not be what you are looking for.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Count me as one of those who prefer fixed page numbers. ...

I like fixed page numbers as well. If I convert a book in Calibre to ePub I can "sync" the book on a Kobo and a Tolino and a Sony (for example) just by going to the page number.

Does the KePub in 4.18 change page count depending on font size?

(Testing... I see that it does — that's kind of weird.)

[ratinox]

Let's take a book. Two different physical versions will have different page numbers. But the same ePub on different Readers using the ADE page numbers will be the same. That's consistent.

I'll reiterate:

Assume we both have the same reader with the same settings such that the same text on both is identical. Assume we also have the same edition of an illustrated ebook. Since it's the same ebook we see the same ADE faux pagination.

I take my copy of this book and remove the images; you leave the images in yours. Call mine my private edition. We now both read through 32 screens of our respective books. Your position in your edition is different from my position in my private edition even though they are the same faux page.

You open a different ebook and read 32 screens. Your reading position in this new book might have a correspondance with my reading position in my private edition but it has none with your illustrated copy of the book.

ADE pages are only consistent with a specific edition of a specific book. They are inconsistent across different editions of the same book and they are even less consistent across different books.

If you have a 6" Reader and you buy an 8" Reader and you know the page number you were on, you can go to that page on your new larger Reader. So you can pick up where you left off. Can't do that with 1 page = 1 screen.

I never said you could, and I happen to think that the 1 screen = 1 page idea is an even worse idea than ADE and Kepub faux pages. I'm only using screen flips in my example here because it's a consistency in our actions: same number of flips yielding different numbers of faux pages read.