How to go to a page on Kindle??? Locations are annoying.

[nimblem]

My old reader had page turn till the end of the book. Although they do change with font size, personally I liked it much better. I agree that locations are confusing.

[Madmanden]

Originally Posted by Mike 01Hawk

Again, I wish I could turn off locations so I DON'T know where I am in the book (physically so to speak).

While I can't figure out why someone would want that, it is at least easily solvable by masking the location bar with tape or something similar.

At least on the Kindle you don't have the physical book in your hands telling you if you're near the beginning or end.

[bluemoonjules]

Hmmm....guess this illustrates the benefit of researching features and functions before you buy......

[matt314159]

I personally don't see why they can't have it user-selectable....so that if you want to use the "pages" convention (imperfect as that may be) you can use that system, and if you want "locations", you can use that. I kinda liked how the sony used "pages". If you bumped up the font, it just took more screens to get through that "page". It felt more like a "book" experience to me, and in that way, I actually preferred it. I still find the "locations" disconcerting. I like the progress bar but wish it would say I was on page 298 of 405 or whatever. The 405 number being based off the original mobi file in its default state.

[Piper_]

I wish they'd give the option too. Locations and file management are the only two areas on which I felt like I was making a sacrifice when I decided on Kindle.

The search is ok for finding a known string in the Kindle. The trouble is going in the other direction; locations are no help in directing someone to a place in a pbook.

Calculating pages based on averages is something processors were made to do for us, so it would be nice if they at least did that, but even then, that calculation is only helpful for books of simple, linear text. It doesn't work for books with many linked or other formatted sections that throw everything off too much to be any use.

A ratio of screens views to paper pages is always going to be more dependable and easier to calculate than a ratio of bytes to paper.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Piper_

The search is ok for finding a known string in the Kindle. The trouble is going in the other direction; locations are no help in directing someone to a place in a pbook.

They are equally no help for that. Suppose you're talking about a book like, say, "Pride and Prejudice" with 100 different paper editions, each of which is going to be paginated differently. What use is a page number for that? All that's meaningful to give if you want to direct someone to a particular location in the book is a chapter reference.

[Dr. Bob]

Hi all. New here.

My vote goes to page numbers. I don't think it's a good idea to go against a convention that has been in use for hundreds of years. The solution is simple and has been mentioned in this thread a few times. You simply have to make a distinction between 'pages' and 'screens' as units when navigating through a text. When you enlarge your font moving through a single page will just take more screens. If in a given situation it would take 4 screens to make up one page in addition to the page number a percentage of the page you're on could be shown. Like:

Page 82 - 00%
Page 82 - 25%
Page 82 - 50%
Page 82 - 75%
Page 83 - 00%
Etc.

Was this really too difficult to grasp for Amazon?

I have no problem with supplying an additional method of navigating through a text like locations but I do have a problem with offering it as the only method. It's basically a proprietary formatting method that moves away from standardisation across platforms. And that's a bad thing.

Of course in order to use page numbers you have to position Page Break codes in a digital text. If Amazon hasn't taken the trouble to do this when they made their ebooks for the Kindle they have a problem addressing this issue. If indeed a location is a 128 byte chunk from the beginning of the file as I believe was mentioned in this thread then it's clear that no human intervention is required to calculate these location numbers. For using page numbers that human intervention would be required. Someone would have to decide where the page breaks go/ought to be if you want to keep them the same as a paper version of that book.

Of course if a book has never been published in paper format you'd need a different method to define a 'page'. It shouldn't be too hard to calculate the average number of characters/words on an average printed page and agree on using that number to calculate a page number. And if for reference purpose you want an exact location? Page xx (or Chapter xx) - Line yy should work (line meaning sentence). Computers are very good at keeping track of such numbers. They've been using something similar like that for quite some time in a rather well known book. Begins with a B.

I don't have a Kindle and only use 'Kindle for PC' so far but found the use of locations annoying. It would definitely feature on the minus side of my list when deciding what e-reader to buy.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Dr. Bob

BTW. Just today a new version of Kindle for PC has been released.
(Version 1.2.1 (30427) it says in the About info.

Welcome to MobileRead, Bob. Click on my linky and introduce your self to let us welcome you properly.

Enjoyl

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by Piper_

The search is ok for finding a known string in the Kindle. The trouble is going in the other direction; locations are no help in directing someone to a place in a pbook.

You can use chapters. They are the same in both kinds of documents.

In Bibles this is easy since Books, Chapters and Verse numbers are EXACTLY the same. I read The One Year Bible NLT each day and make my notes in the KJV and NET. All are Kindle books and its easy going back and forth especially using the DVJ feature.

If one really wants pages, then use the Sony PRS 900. It uses print book page numbers but the number of screens per page varies depending on font sizes.

[church mouse]

No solution will satisfy all.

On my Sony, how page numbers are used depends upon which format is being read. Epubs have "absolute" pages i.e. they remain the same no matter what font size is used, but people have complained on the Sony forum that this can mean you are shown being between pages eg. 32-33 etc.

In LRF my Sony will recalculate the page according to the font size one chooses - so page 100 will be different depending upon which font size I am reading in.

Personally, I like the epub system for pages, but I am getting used to locations whilst I test my Kindle out (I already have a feeling my like of epub pages will not be enough to tempt me back to my Sony).

[emalvick]

As a new Kindle user (and new to ebooks), I have to say that I don't much care for Locations, but then I don't they are any worse than page numbers. Having gone through college where I was happy to buy an older edition of a text book, it became all too familiar to have page numbers be different. Even Chapters were different in those cases.

In terms of the original post, the easy, although probably imperfect, solution would be to look at what "page" or location you were on with respect to the total number of pages...

i.e. if you are on page 300 of a 600 page book, you could say you are 50% of the way through your book. You could then go to your ebook and based on the number of locations bring yourself to the 50% point of that book. For instance, if the same book had 8000 locations, you should put yourself to that location. You shouldn't be too far off from where you need to be.

That would probably be about as accurate as you could do if you were jumping from various printings of any other book. A page number is really only as good as keeping with that edition or printing of a book will do.

The other solution is to navigate to whatever chapter you were in if the book your in has chapters. That wouldn't be much different than the comments with respect to the Bible earlier in the thread.

Ultimately, I like the % reference on the location bar. Locations don't mean much to me, but then in reading a print book, page numbers only meant something with respect to my progress in the total of the book. I just cover more locations than I did with pages. Of course I'm not reading any faster, but it feels that way sometimes .

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Dr. Bob

Hi all. New here.

My vote goes to page numbers. I don't think it's a good idea to go against a convention that has been in use for hundreds of years. The solution is simple and has been mentioned in this thread a few times. You simply have to make a distinction between 'pages' and 'screens' as units when navigating through a text. When you enlarge your font moving through a single page will just take more screens. If in a given situation it would take 4 screens to make up one page in addition to the page number a percentage of the page you're on could be shown. Like:

Page 82 - 00%
Page 82 - 25%
Page 82 - 50%
Page 82 - 75%
Page 83 - 00%
Etc.

Was this really too difficult to grasp for Amazon?

I have no problem with supplying an additional method of navigating through a text like locations but I do have a problem with offering it as the only method. It's basically a proprietary formatting method that moves away from standardisation across platforms. And that's a bad thing.

Of course in order to use page numbers you have to position Page Break codes in a digital text. If Amazon hasn't taken the trouble to do this when they made their ebooks for the Kindle they have a problem addressing this issue. If indeed a location is a 128 byte chunk from the beginning of the file as I believe was mentioned in this thread then it's clear that no human intervention is required to calculate these location numbers. For using page numbers that human intervention would be required. Someone would have to decide where the page breaks go/ought to be if you want to keep them the same as a paper version of that book.

Of course if a book has never been published in paper format you'd need a different method to define a 'page'. It shouldn't be too hard to calculate the average number of characters/words on an average printed page and agree on using that number to calculate a page number. And if for reference purpose you want an exact location? Page xx (or Chapter xx) - Line yy should work. Computers are very good at keeping track of such numbers. They've been using something similar like that for quite some time in a rather well known book. Begins with a B.

I don't have a Kindle and only use 'Kindle for PC' so far but found the use of locations annoying. It would definitely feature on the minus side of my list when deciding what e-reader to buy.

The problem comes more when the book has multiple editions. Most books have at least two. Believe me. Amazon has spent some time thinking about it. Personally I prefer a way to denote location that is consistent. Locations are within the Amazon and Mobipocket universe. So while I will take that over a changing "page" number any day, it is not my ideal. I like the previously mentioned chapter/paragraph scheme. Portable amongst file formats, printings, etc. After all, as more books go digital, the concept of a page becomes vestigial.

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They are equally no help for that. Suppose you're talking about a book like, say, "Pride and Prejudice" with 100 different paper editions, each of which is going to be paginated differently. What use is a page number for that? All that's meaningful to give if you want to direct someone to a particular location in the book is a chapter reference.

I agree! Chapters --and sections-- definitely help and I'm for using them whenever possible. I was just comparing the relative merits of "Locations Vs. Screen counts."

On that question, I don't think they're equally no help, for the reason I gave:

A ratio of screens views to paper pages can be calculated. A ratio of bytes to paper pages cannot be calculated.

It isn't a deal breaker; I'm very happy with my Kindle

I just wish they'd give me the page option, like I wish they'd give directories and epub support.

I understand no epub, but the only thing I can see locations being better at is locating a word or sentence inside an exact matching file version of title. It's not like the 100 editions of Pride and Prejudice will have consistent locations.

[catsittingstill]

My vote goes for locations.

Much like page numbers, only more accurate, because they refer to smaller chunks of text.

[readingaloud]

Most people would find locations more comprehensible if Amazon just divided by 10 and put in the decimal point for you. Then locations would be about the same size as pages, and it would be easier for most people to use them to get oriented in the book.