Page Numbers, Percentage, or nothing at all

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a very simple solution. Read ePub instead of KePub.

That won't help if you're reading library books synced to the reader when away from home.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ppowell002

My current book in hardcover is 461 pages, in my ebook it's 2578 pages. It's all nonsense.

And when that book comes out in trade paperback the page count will change and then mass market paperback, the page count will change yet again. It's madness. Madness!

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

And when that book comes out in trade paperback the page count will change and then mass market paperback, the page count will change yet again. It's madness. Madness!

It’s like page counts are subjective to multiple conditions and there’s little conformity in any format.

Where’s chicken little cause the sky is falling!

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

ebooks seldom if ever aligned with their physical counterparts especially by the time various physical editions were released.

Yeah, but at least there was some correlation and consistency. Screen per page "page count" destroys that.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

It’s like page counts are subjective to multiple conditions and there’s little conformity in any format.

Where’s chicken little cause the sky is falling!

Ridicule always helps in any argument, doesn't it? In the old scheme the original hardback might be 450 pages and the eBook might be 530 pages (numbers pulled out of a hat). No, not the same, but something that at least "correlates," a general idea of book length. With the screen-per-page scheme, change the font size and the page count can be anything, 200 pages to 4,000 pages. It's totally meaningless.

Why not offer the option to use the old system? A system not based on something as arbitrary as the number of words on a particular screen (depending on font size, or size of the screen).

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Ridicule always helps in any argument, doesn't it? In the old scheme the original hardback might be 450 pages and the eBook might be 530 pages (numbers pulled out of a hat). No, not the same, but something that at least "correlates," a general idea of book length. With the screen-per-page scheme, change the font size and the page count can be anything, 200 pages to 4,000 pages. It's totally meaningless.

Why not offer the option to use the old system? A system not based on something as arbitrary as the number of words on a particular screen (depending on font size, or size of the screen).

Because honestly the sooner we divorce ebooks from mirroring physical books the better IMO. It’s like transitioning from scrolls to bound books, the convention used to measure length doesn’t apply anymore. Fortunately we don’t still measure books as being inches or feet long.

Also just how many old options should we leave in? Over the years Kobo have removed and changed features that people liked. While some can be tweaked back with patches not all can be. So should Kobo just add more and more screens to the settings to accommodate all these things? And what about when these systems start to cause issues?

How often do you change the font size, line spacing or margins? I’d wager for most people it’s a set and forget thing, maybe some fiddling with size depending on circumstances but still not a frequent thing. So the 1 screen = 1 page would be relatively in changed.

Additionally with the old system there was a direct contradiction with the pages left in the chapter.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Ridicule always helps in any argument, doesn't it? In the old scheme the original hardback might be 450 pages and the eBook might be 530 pages (numbers pulled out of a hat). No, not the same, but something that at least "correlates," a general idea of book length. With the screen-per-page scheme, change the font size and the page count can be anything, 200 pages to 4,000 pages. It's totally meaningless.

Page numbers in physical books are also totally meaningless.

My hardcover version of Shogun is 920 pages.
My girlfriend's paperback version is 1100-something pages.
My ebook version, when counting with my own scheme of 2100 characters (350 words per page), is 1276 "pages".

I don't even really care what the e-reader says. To me, the ebook is 1276 pages, and if the ereader makes 1400 or 1531 out of that because of the one page per screen scenario, I'm fine with that.

The only thing I need to know, is that if I'm at 10%, I'll be at MY page 127 out of 1276.

Using your own count also means that a book of 600 "pages" actually is about twice the length of a book that has 300 "pages".

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Because honestly the sooner we divorce ebooks from mirroring physical books the better IMO. It’s like transitioning from scrolls to bound books, the convention used to measure length doesn’t apply anymore. Fortunately we don’t still measure books as being inches or feet long.

It's interesting that you mention scrolls because scrolls are a closer physical analogue to ebooks than bound, square cut sheaves of paper. In fact, we use a verbified form of the word to denote the moving of text across a display. Of course, measuring ebooks in terms of inches makes about as much sense as measuring them in terms of pages.

Newspaper columns in the US are measured in inches.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by ratinox

It's interesting that you mention scrolls because scrolls are a closer physical analogue to ebooks than bound, square cut sheaves of paper. In fact, we use a verbified form of the word to denote the moving of text across a display. Of course, measuring ebooks in terms of inches makes about as much sense as measuring them in terms of pages.

Newspaper columns in the US are measured in inches.

Exactly, I think I used a similar example with Jon somewhere in the mess of all this. Many ereader apps scroll up and down further increasing the similarities. Though some have gone the way of simulating a page turn it only makes it plainer to me that it’s a screen not a page since nothing actually is flipped it’s just an illusion.

And yes measuring an ebook in inches is pointless we’d be in the same spot we are now since different sized screens, settings etc would throw it all off.

The more I think about it the more word count seems to be the best measure. No matter the size of the screen or your settings if you’re 10,000 words in to a book you’d be 10,000 words in on any device. It’d be consistent between books save for those with images which have no text description by them. And it’s easy enough to abbreviate the numbers into a more manageable form than 1,986,876 while still being precise.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

And it’s easy enough to abbreviate the numbers into a more manageable form than 1,986,876 while still being precise.

To be fair, even a doorstop isn't that long. The longest book in the Waste of Time series is "only" about 400K words.

[JSWolf]

I was looking up some of the longest books and they are given in word count and pages. The pages are useless as they won't all match.

Use ADE style pages and yes, they will match and be meaningful. So pBook pages, useless. ADE pages, useful.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Use ADE style pages and yes, they will match and be meaningful. So pBook pages, useless. ADE pages, useful.

I can't name a publisher that pays by the kilobyte of text. So maybe useful if you're a computer and count text in terms of 1kb chunks, not so much for the rest of us.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by ratinox

To be fair, even a doorstop isn't that long. The longest book in the Waste of Time series is "only" about 400K words.

You’re forgetting that they do box sets for these series as ebooks. Yes there is one for Wheel of Time.

And yes I find the term boxed set here to be hilarious since there’s no physical objects to put in the box which also doesn’t exist but I mean we’ve got people who still insist blocks of text have pages despite the evidence to the contrary.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I was looking up some of the longest books and they are given in word count and pages. The pages are useless as they won't all match.

Use ADE style pages and yes, they will match and be meaningful. So pBook pages, useless. ADE pages, useful.

You’re using an arbitrary system to define another arbitrary system rather than using a definitive system.

Hold out a page from an ereader. I’ll wait.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

You’re forgetting that they do box sets for these series as ebooks. Yes there is one for Wheel of Time.

I didn't forget. I simply took it for granted that a set would be one file/archive per volume and that if you wanted to reference a specific point in a specific volume you would note the title or volume number.