Show pages in chapter

[Evil Overlord]

My Kobo e-reader has the option to show, at the top of the screen (as I have it configured, anyway), the number of pages in the chapter (e.g., 3 of 6), while at the bottom it shows the pages in the book (or % read). My question isn't specific to Kobos; I'm just using this example.

The books I buy seem very inconsistent in how this is applied. For example, in one book with no chapters, the e-reader suddenly started showing page numbers halfway through the book (counting from that change). This was presumably because the book was split into two xhtml files. However, I haven't tracked down what the difference in the files was.

What EPUB feature determines whether the e-reader will/can show the number of pages in the chapter, and what the chapter/heading level is that it uses. For example, if I have an EPUB with headings at: Title, Section, and Chapter, what determines which is used?

I'm thinking it's something to do with which heading style <h1>, <h2>, etc. is used, and that it's something simple, but haven't figured it out.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Evil Overlord

My Kobo e-reader has the option to show, at the top of the screen (as I have it configured, anyway), the number of pages in the chapter (e.g., 3 of 6), while at the bottom it shows the pages in the book (or % read). My question isn't specific to Kobos; I'm just using this example.

It mostly depends on the reader/app you are using.

Some count per EPUB, some count per file ("Chapter"), and some do other fancy heuristics (like headings/subheadings).

Many readers also allow the user to choose between different settings:

Pages/Screens vs. % of book/chapter vs. "Time Left to Read".

- - -

Then... it would depend on how the EPUB was built.

If the person built the EPUB poorly, and had the entire book in one ginormous file, well, the "per file" count wouldn't be able to work well!

Some ebooks, very rarely—and mostly Non-Fiction—even have RPNs (Real Page Numbers) built in, so your reader might even recognize + show those!

Originally Posted by Evil Overlord

For example, if I have an EPUB with headings at: Title, Section, and Chapter, what determines which is used?

I'm suspecting it's just per file.

So, if you'd open up the EPUB, you might see something like this:

• Chapter01.xhtml
• Chapter02.xhtml
• Chapter03.xhtml

then, when the Kobo opens the EPUB, it'll just generate a "# of pages" for every file:

• Chapter01.xhtml = 5 pages
• Chapter02.xhtml = 10 pages
• Chapter03.xhtml = 20 pages

Then, depending on which settings you chose on your device, it could show:

• 5/5 = Chapter
• 5/35 = Book
• 14% = % of Book

Originally Posted by Evil Overlord

The books I buy seem very inconsistent in how this is applied. For example, in one book with no chapters, the e-reader suddenly started showing page numbers halfway through the book (counting from that change). This was presumably because the book was split into two xhtml files. However, I haven't tracked down what the difference in the files was.

I don't know. No way to tell unless you open up the ebook and look inside.

But it at least should've showed you the entire book's "page" count.

[Evil Overlord]

Thanks very much. I've opened up a few inconsistent EPUBs to look inside, but can't figure out what's different between xhtml files that do show a chapter page count and those that don't. (The total page count always shows. I haven't changed my device settings.). I'll keep looking.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Evil Overlord

Thanks very much. I've opened up a few inconsistent EPUBs to look inside, but can't figure out what's different between xhtml files that do show a chapter page count and those that don't. (The total page count always shows. I haven't changed my device settings.). I'll keep looking.

Maybe some of your epub3 or kepub books have a NAV page-list section. To check this simply open the NAV file and search for epub:type="page-list".

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Evil Overlord

Thanks very much. I've opened up a few inconsistent EPUBs to look inside, but can't figure out what's different between xhtml files that do show a chapter page count and those that don't. (The total page count always shows. I haven't changed my device settings.). I'll keep looking.

If you are reading KePub, you need to have an NCX ToC entry for every HTML file in the eBook.= in order to get the page counts to work properly.

As for your original question, it depends on the software and what features it has.