How many words in an ePub Book

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I thought it was just me

BR

Nope. Also a fan of word counts here. They (generally) are the same no matter what device or paper container the book uses where page count changes depending on dozens of things. Plus I guess I've gotten used to word count since I started buying ebooks heavily in '07 as many smaller publishers use it as an indicator of book length.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Nope. Also a fan of word counts here. They (generally) are the same no matter what device or paper container the book uses where page count changes depending on dozens of things. Plus I guess I've gotten used to word count since I started buying ebooks heavily in '07 as many smaller publishers use it as an indicator of book length.

I got used it to when my teachers told me to write 3,000 word essays; in ink (no ball points), on paper.

Typing performance is measured in words per minute, as is shorthand.

BR

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Nope. Also a fan of word counts here. They (generally) are the same no matter what device or paper container the book uses where page count changes depending on dozens of things. Plus I guess I've gotten used to word count since I started buying ebooks heavily in '07 as many smaller publishers use it as an indicator of book length.

Page count or word count makes no difference to me, neither changes once entered in calibre. I have page count listed in calibre so it is consistent regardless of which device I ultimately send the book to.

[BookJunkieLI]

And for those who read a lot of fanfiction the only measurement is word count. I've yet to see an archive that lists a page count. Plus in some fandoms, quantity does usually equal quality. Very few authors with bad grammar/poor plotting are going to bother writing a 25k or longer story.

But word count vs page count, we all have our preferences and that's the great thing about Calibre and the Count Pages plugin - we can each have it our own way.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

And for those who read a lot of fanfiction the only measurement is word count.

Fanfiction or novels the Count pages plugin doesn't care.

[cybmole]

paper books have page numbers -> page count is available.

they don't have word counts.

I use page count in calibre as an estimate of how long it would take to read the book. I can relate well to a 3 digit page number, ( & if it's not 3 digits I know it's a very short story, or a very long epic! )

I doubt I'd ever get on well with word counts - how thick a book is 55,555 words?

I tried to get used to Kindles' location counts on my 1st ever e-reader & I never cared for those big numbers either- by the time that Amazon had figured out how to add page numbering, I'd moved on to epub.

PS I've still not seen , for word counts, how you restrict it to words in the story & exlcude the words in the copyright page, the list of publishers world-wide addresses etc.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

Not to be contrary but I prefer Word count to Page count for the simple fact page count will vary depending on where I'm reading the file - be it my Nook, tablet, or on my computer. My Nook for instance may say that the book I'm reading is 250 pages but I'll have to change the page on the screen 500 to 750 times because one "page" of text equals three screens of text.
Word count, on the other hand, doesn't change from one device to another by more than 25 to 50 words - a variance I can live with.
I can look at the word count and know that a 2500 word file is a quick read while a 40k word file is going to take me a day or two.
It's all a matter of perspective.

Any program you use to read that uses ADE will give you the same page count. That includes nook, ADE, and any app on your tablet based on ADE.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by saoir

Not trying to be obtuse but why would I delete that text file ?

Why are you doing things the hard way when there's a simple plugin that will do it for you and no need to convert to text and no need to them view in Calibre's viewer. You can create two custom columns and the page and word counts will be there when you want to see them. Simple really.

And until you do the simple thing with the plugin, you are taking up a lot more disk space with a text file for every eBook.

[cybmole]

to be pedantic we should probably also use the term "screens count" - the KObo readres, with kepubs, and the Kobo android app dynamically calculate "pages" which are now equivalent to screens, on a chapter by chapter bases , based on your current font, margin, justify etc settings. tweak any of those & the "page" count will change.

but like the man just said - "pages" in ADE speak are constant- an ADE "page" may span 3 1/2 e-reader screens on your preferred device+ settings, but it's a set amount of bytes, and it will display the same in ADE on PC, or on your device. thus if you know you are at page 137 of a side loaded book, you can go straight to that in any other ADE software.

to do that with word count you need a way of quickly getting to word 13,749 or whatever when you change device but want to pickup where you left off in the same book - I suggest that is tricky

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cybmole

to do that with word count you need a way of quickly getting to word 13,749 or whatever when you change device but want to pickup where you left off in the same book - I suggest that is tricky

The easy way to find where you are without page numbers is to do a search. Grab a few words from the first sentence on the page on screen and you'll be able to find where you are.

[BookJunkieLI]

@DoctorOhh - Calibre and the Count Pages plugin don't care but any fanfiction archive you go to is going to list by word count, not pages. So if I want to find/sort based on length? It's going to be in words not pages.

@cybmole - A 55,555 word book is roughly 250 to 275 pages depending on formatting. Out of curiosity, I created a text file with exactly 55,555 words using a lorem ipsum word generator and imported it into Calibre. I then converted it to EPUB and ran Count Pages which put it at 55,554 but only 98 pages. That's 566 words to a page. I don't think I've ever read a book with that many words to a single page.
And word count probably won't exclude things like the copyright pages, dedications, and that extra stuff but most of the time that doesn't amount to more than 100 or so words. Hardly a drop in the bucket of a 55k text.

To everyone who keeps pointing out ADE page count is the same across devices, you're beating a dead horse. Yes, it's the same across devices. And when I'm reading on my Nook I use the page count to determine how far along/how far to go I have in a book/story. For actually sorting in Calibre I prefer Word Count because it's what I'm comfortable with. And if Count Pages is going to tell me that a 55k+ plus book is only 98 pages using the ADE formula? I'll stick with my word counts.

[Zetmolm]

@BookJunkieLI: Your experiment is not quite valid. The ADE word count is based on the number of bytes in the zipped file that an epub consists of. A 55,555 word book consisting of repeated lorem ipsum text zips to a smaller file size than a real book where every sentence is different. A real 55,555 word book therefore would have more than 98 pages, and not as many as 566 words per page.

Aside from that, for me personally, the word count is more meaningful than the page count. A 55,555 word book translates to some 4 hours of reading.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

The ADE word count is based on the number of bytes in the zipped file that an epub consists of.

@Zetmolm I have no reason to doubt what you say, but if it's true then:

• a picture book made up entirely of images and no text other than what's on front/back matter will have more 'ADE words' that a doctoral dissertation on particle physics and therefore take longer to read
  
• or if I zip up an epub with no compression then it will have more 'ADE words' than the same book with maximum compression

BR

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by cybmole

it comes down to whether you trust the accuracy of the plug-in, or are obsessive enough to test it with a large sample of books & compare the word counts that you get from converting to txt, doc etc & counting with other tools

but once you get that obsessive, how do you define "words in a book" anyway.

Do you count the TOC words, the copyright page, the if you like this please read on for an extract of something else crap ( which I always delete), the "about the author" page ( ditto, the other books by... (ditto) if i need to know that I can just google, I don't need it inside of every book....

I am happy with just a count of pages per book; that gives me a reading estimate & if I take it after deleting the aforementioned "extras", its then based on only the story length

I would suggest that only writers /proof-readers who are paid per word ( & OCD sufferers) need an actual word count

I trust it

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Zetmolm I have no reason to doubt what you say, but if it's true then:

• a picture book made up entirely of images and no text other than what's on front/back matter will have more 'ADE words' that a doctoral dissertation on particle physics and therefore take longer to read
  
• or if I zip up an epub with no compression then it will have more 'ADE words' than the same book with maximum compression

BR

How the page count is done is described in the Wiki. And it probably does mean some strange things for graphic heavy books.