Kobo glo by Fnac : page number display bug

Hi there,
I have a quite annoying issue with my kobo glo (by fnac, the french version) with non-kobo-made epub ebooks.

The number of pages of a book that is displayed doesn't correspond to the actual number.

Let me explain it:
For example, if I am on page 10, and I goto the next page, the book will properly display the next page but it will still be shown as page number 10. If I turn again for one to three times, it will again show it as page number 10...
A page labelled as number 11 will only appear from three to five pages after the first page labelled as number ten, and so on and so forth.

As a result, if a book has 300 pages, it will just say this book has 100 pages but in reality each page number that is displayed corresponds to about 3 real pages.

It is quite annoying as I never know where exactly I was when I want to go back to a certain page number and it makes it very hard to assess the real length of a book.

I guess many people will tell me that it might come from a corrupt epub file, but I can assure my epub files are clean, and that I have a big enough library (approx 150 books) to ensure that this issue is more a bug due to the KOBO GLO READER than the file format.

Does anybody faces the same problem and if yes, how can I fix this?

Thanks for the help of the community

[robko]

It not a bug. It is the nature of the way the Adobe epub software that is the base for most ereaders assigns page numbers. Since the amount of text displayed on a "physical screen" of the device depends on font size, an Adoble "epub page" is calculated as 1024 characters, so if you are using a larger font it will be multiple pages. Yes this is arbitrary (but consistent) but what would be a better way? You have to pick some number and if you change font size from the standard used you're right back where you started. If you want to use actually pages from the book what edition do you use (hardcover, softcover etc). And you still don't end up with one page per screen.
There is no way around this with epubs currently.

Thank you for your clear answer. I didn't know all of this.
You're right to say things would be messed up if you change the font size, then you'll lose the page number references ...


A good workaround would be :
to put an index after the page number as the ebook reader of calibre does: p.10 > p.10.5 > p.11 ...
Or to have two type of page numbering: the absolute and the relative (to the configuration)...

Still as far as I remember, FBREADER for android does this. the page number depends on the font size and the resolution of the screen. The page number depends on the device and its configuration...

Thanks

[vjjustin]

Sorry for bumping up this old thread, but is there any way to replace the absolute page numbers with the relative ones in the latest firmware?

[dordale]

Originally Posted by vjjustin

Sorry for bumping up this old thread, but is there any way to replace the absolute page numbers with the relative ones in the latest firmware?

If you convert your books to kePub, you can set your Kobo to show "pages" per chapter. If it's set per chapter, a "page" is equal to a change and will change when you adjust font/margin/line spacing. Is this what you mean?

If the display is set to show pages for the entire book, the page numbers are static and don't change with font/margin/line spacing.

Also, the above only works for kePub books, not ePub.

[vjjustin]

Originally Posted by dordale

a "page" is equal to a change and will change when you adjust font/margin/line spacing. Is this what you mean?

...the above only works for kePub books, not ePub.

Yes, that is what I am looking for. Unfortunately, I don't want to convert all my ebooks to kepub. I guess I am stuck then. Thanks, anyways.

[JSWolf]

Using ePub, you get ADE page numbers. They are based on 1024 compressed bytes being one page. So changing fonts, margins, font size, line height, etc. cannot change the page numbers. It's not like iBooks where one screen equals one page. I find that to be just so wrong.

You just have to deal as there's no way you'll ever get what you want with ePub.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by vjjustin

Yes, that is what I am looking for. Unfortunately, I don't want to convert all my ebooks to kepub. I guess I am stuck then. Thanks, anyways.

One advantage to the Adobe synthetic page numbering is that it is consistent. If I read the same epub edition on multiple devices the page number is transferable.

Another option is to add a page-map file to your epub which, AFAIK, works only for Adobe based reading software. You can find more information in the Mobileread Wiki Adobe Digital Editions or check Google.