Sick of Amazon Kindle books without Page Numbers...

[Josieb1]

I use percentage read over whole book, it's far more accurate than page numbers will ever be.

[John F]

I picked "Not important at all". Any Amazon ebooks I purchase, I read as epubs.

For me, percentage read isn't enough; for short stories and shorter novels, % read isn't very useful.

[issybird]

I like ADE page numbers for two reasons: they let me switch among my devices and easily find my place (my content is sideloaded) and since they're consistent among different books, I can judge how much time I have left in a chapter or a book (I'm better at that than Kobo or Kindle, especially with non-fiction, where there's a lot of endmatter that doesn't get read).

What I don't get, frankly, is the conversation:

"I like page numbers; they provide value to me."
"That's stupid and no, they don't."

Add to that the strawmen of various paper editions having different page counts (which is irrelevant) and assuming that people want page numbers to reflect page turns (which they don't).

[ApK]

Originally Posted by issybird

What I don't get, frankly, is the conversation:

"I like page numbers; they provide value to me."
"That's stupid and no, they don't."

I see that particular part of the conversation more as analogous to:
"I like rotary dials on phones, so smartphone makers should add them."
"You will be better off learning to adapt to the new ways of using a phone."

Add to that the strawmen of various paper editions having different page counts (which is irrelevant) and assuming that people want page numbers to reflect page turns (which they don't).

Not strawmen or irrelevant at all. Many people have said the specific reason page nums are important to them is so that in class rooms, everyone can be told one page number as they are with paper books today. It was simplly countered that this is not valid because even today different editions of paper books frequently make teachers say things like "page 113, or the middle of chapter three, the paragraph beginning 'Bob said to May...'"
As for wanting it to equal page turns, that's the only way that they would be any more effective or less arbitrary than any other location or progress indication, with the one exception of discounting end matter and forwards and stuff, as you say, and that could be accomplished in ways other than misapplying static artifacts from paper books.

So the conversation really boils down to "what value do you get, and can you get the same value without them."
If the answer is nothing more than "I just want them," then, yes, thr comversation on both sides is pointless.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Adding to your post.
Page numbers don't even correspond between different versions of a paper book. So they are only useful for the exact book that you are using. A hardcover and a soft cover would be different.

Oh and the older I get, the more useful I find bookmarks as opposed to trying to remember where I was in a book.

True. Just look at different printings of say the Bible next time you are in a church. The pew Bible may have a book starting on one page and the copy you bought at the store may have it starting on another entirely. It's down to the size and choice of font that the publisher used. That's probably why churches provide a standard hymnal as well. Otherwise everyone might be singing a different hymn. lol. And I imagine different publishers in general for mass market books may use different sizes and thicknesses of paper too which would also have an effect on page #'s.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by ApK

I see that particular part of the conversation more as analogous to:
"I like rotary dials on phones, so smartphone makers should add them."
"You will be better off learning to adapt to the new ways of using a phone."


Not strawmen or irrelevant at all. Many people have said the specific reason page nums are important to them is so that in class rooms, everyone can be told one page number as they are with paper books today. It was simplly countered that this is not valid because even today different editions of paper books frequently make teachers say things like "page 113, or the middle of chapter three, the paragraph beginning 'Bob said to May...'"
As for wanting it equaly page turns, that's the only way that they would be any more effective or less arbitrary than any other location or progress indication, with the one exception of discounting end matter and forwards and stuff, as you say, and that could be accomplished in ways other than misapplying static artifacts from paper books.

I'd imagine some of the 'value' is psychological in nature. I mean say you have two books on the same subject. One is 20 pages long and is priced at $2.99 while the other is 50 pages long and is also $2.99. Which one are you more likely to buy? I'd guess the one with more pages. Even though depending on the type/size of font in an ebook the actual # of pages will vary. We tend to see more value in getting more at a given price even if the more is an illusion to some degree.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ApK

I see that particular part of the conversation more as analogous to:
"I like rotary dials on phones, so smartphone makers should add them."
"You will be better off learning to adapt to the new ways of using a phone."

The more exact analogy would be:

"I'm going to dial home."
"Now that rotary phones are defunct, you can't use the word "dial" anymore."

Page number is just a handy term adopted to mark a consistent amount of digital text, in this context. Easily understood. ADE page numbers are just a useful measure, but neither such tiny increments as Amazon locations which are inconsistent anyway, nor so large as not to allow meaningful calculations. Change the name, If that would make you feel better. But people are going to continue to dial on their smart phones.

with the one exception of discounting end matter and forwards and stuff, as you say, and that could be accomplished in ways other than misapplying static artifacts from paper books.

That's a major dismissal, a wave of your hand. How? Would it be as easy? As useful? Again, I just want something that measures text in meaningful increments across all my books.

So the conversation really boils down to "what value do you get, and can you get the same value without them."
If the answer is nothing more than "I just want them," then, yes, thr comversation on both sides is pointless.

Or, again, "I'm hung up on terminology and I have no use for them; end of conversation." Because my answer was specific in regard to value and you pulled out a prolix "That's stupid," without offering an alternative.

[GlenBarrington]

But I disagree with the "get over yourself" part. It's OK to want page numbers, I personally don't see how they have much meaning in an eReader environment though. But it's ok to want them, and if you have a use for them, that's even better.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by issybird

That's a major dismissal, a wave of your hand. How? Would it be as easy? As useful? Again, I just want something that measures text in meaningful increments across all my books.

Or, again, "I'm hung up on terminology and I have no use for them; end of conversation." Because my answer was specific in regard to value and you pulled out a prolix "That's stupid," without offering an alternative.

You seem to be saying "I want ebook locations to be larger than Amazon's and I want to call them pages." OK fine. Which of us is hung up on terminology?

That sure is not what many others are asking for.

As for the non-end-matter stuff, if THAT's what the conversion is to be about (and it's pretty clear that it NOT in this thread overall, it's just one part of it) then, sure, I could see a poll on that and even getting together as a community to ask for it in ebooks, or even in ereader (mark you own start and end whether the book supports it or not, like the a/b button on tape decks)*. It's been discussed, and at the high level, it's a matter of implementing a "start" and "end" tag of some kind to measure progress between.
The exact manner in which that progress is divided and shown ("pages," "locations," percentage, bar graph, etc) is not directly related to that idea, but that is what seems to be the subject of this thread. Don't conflate the two and claim they are one and the same.

Also, are you saying that ADE pages have that feature already? I don't use an ADE/epub reader, and I don't know. I thought ADE pages worked just like Kindle locations, but they were merely 1024 chars in length or something?

*ETA: Maybe everything we're talking about really would be better implemented as a feature of readers and apps, not of the books. How about the feature to designate any amount of displayed content as a "page" and any point as the start or end? That should satisfy everyone except for the "the pages must always match a paper book" set.

[crich70]

I think the page # debate is in the same family as the argument about if ebooks are real books or not. The media changes and what works within one media doesn't necessarily work in another, but both are books.

[cvkemp]

The only time I have ever used page numbers was when I was in schools and was told to go to a certain page in a book by an instructor.

[hedwig]

While this is not a make or break issue for me and I read Kindle books with locations rather than pages with no problem, I do prefer having the page numbers as it gives me a better picture of my progress than %.
% is not equal to page numbers - for instance, page 41 and page 42 could be the same %, but they are not the same progress in terms of pages. Of course, this is a personal preference as I'm sure others like the % more.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by hedwig

While this is not a make or break issue for me and I read Kindle books with locations rather than pages with no problem, I do prefer having the page numbers as it gives me a better picture of my progress than %.
% is not equal to page numbers - for instance, page 41 and page 42 could be the same %, but they are not the same progress in terms of pages. Of course, this is a personal preference as I'm sure others like the % more.

I can't remember if it was Paul Reiser or Tim Allen that started their book with page 145.
I prefer percents because I know how far I am in the book.
Page 10 might be 1% or 10%. Page 445 might be near the end of 45%.
So without knowing an actual page count, percents are better than numbers.

[jhowell]

On my Kindle I just ignore the last digit of the location number and that results in a somewhat reasonable page number.

[DiapDealer]

I turn off all progress indicators when I eread. I don't want to know where I am in relation to the end of a book (or the end of the chapter for that matter). Knowing I'm close to the end makes me start forming assumptions that I otherwise wouldn't.

However... I'm perfectly willing to concede the fact that people whose wants/needs are different than my own (or whose wants/needs I can't even pretend to understand) are not "wrong" (not inherently anyway). Nor are they necessarily misinformed or unable to grasp the concept of a paradigm shift. Those people are simply "not me." And they're free to continue being "not me" (with no interference from me trying to convince them that they'd be better off if they were, in fact, me).

I may not have always been this way, and it still may occasionally take a post or two for me to remember that being "not me" is an inherent right of ... everybody, but I try.

So as one who has no need of any progress indicators whatsoever, I hereby grant others the authority to desire any such indicators that would make them happy.