The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

The only problem with using a word count is that words vary in length, so two books with the same number of words can greatly vary the length of an e-book. One could have 50 screens, while the other is 60 screens.

It's not a problem if you define "word" consistently. In professional typing, a word is 5 typed characters, and words per minute is calculated from these 5-character words. This isn't the formulas that publishers use (they keep those secret) but it's a sufficiently accurate approximation for most works.

So, take the character count of the body of the text and divide by 5. That's the word count.

Problem solved.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ratinox

It's not a problem if you define "word" consistently. In professional typing, a word is 5 typed characters, and words per minute is calculated from these 5-character words. This isn't the formulas that publishers use (they keep those secret) but it's a sufficiently accurate approximation for most works.

So, take the character count of the body of the text and divide by 5. That's the word count.

Problem solved.

Last time I looked at this, you divided by 6 to account for the space character found between most words.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Absolutely. They also have a page map method option to relate to a physical edition (needed certain text books). That can't be created automatically for an existing epub.

Let's say you have an ePub with a page map matching a some pBook edition. But then the class is using a pBook that has different page numbers, how would that help?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Let's say you have an ePub with a page map matching a some pBook edition. But then the class is using a pBook that has different page numbers, how would that help?

It wouldn't.

However my experience (and some other people more recently) is that textbooks only come in one size and the lecturer will specify ISBN/Year.

So if the ebook is the same edition/year then if it has a page map, it might match.

You know how clued up most publishers are. Poor.

The point is that Adobe do actually have the only two schemes that make any sense for reflowable ebooks. Whether an actual publisher uses them sensibly is something else.

I'd want to see the approved text book and see what the ebook someone else bought before deciding on paper vs ebook for such a tricky lecturer.

However, I can't imagine me personally having to decide. Personally I only care about PDFs having sane page numbers and mostly read reflowable novels where I don't care about page numbers.

This discussion has been many times on MR, and at least you've a sane, rational opinion on it.

[badgoodDeb]

Authors count by word-count, as they create the book. I'm not sure how those words are calculated, but there's some sort of standard. Maybe the authors' word count should have some part in our calculations.

[PeterT]

Fascinating as word counts might be, might I remind people there actually is a discussion thread for Technical Vents.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Fascinating as word counts might be, might I remind people there actually is a discussion thread for Technical Vents.

And Technical = Technology so this is the thread right here.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Fascinating as word counts might be, might I remind people there actually is a discussion thread for Technical Vents.

And Technical fits in with Technology so this is the thread right here.

[PeterT]

Jon; the point is this is no longer a darned RANT; it's you and others just posting your own thoughts on a post.

[JSWolf]

Venting...
Page numbers should not be one per screen on an eBook as that s so very inaccurate.