Does Kobo display total number of pages?

[foghat]

Hi all,

All the pictures I've seen of Kobo (when reading a book) display page 'n of m' for the current chapter.

Does the total number of pages in a book also display somewhere?

Thanks.

[jimr]

No, sadly it only shows number of pages for the current chapter. I hate not knowing the total number of pages. It's one of those left-over 'book' things I guess. Hopefully they'll add that to an upgrade.

[foghat]

That sucks. Might even be a deal breaker for me.

Though I would likely be getting it for my wife, so maybe we'll still end up one.

[jimr]

I've got one. And so far, it's a joy to read. Other than the few software/firmware tweaks that are bound to be made soon, it really is a great little machine. My 80 yr old mother was reading on it this afternoon...she wants one!

[SensualPoet]

Well, that's odd. The book I am reading displays pg x of 227 at the bottom of every page. These are pg numbers for the run of the book, not the chapters. There are a dozen chapters. There are also tiny numbers in the right hand margin indicating the pg number.

BTW, I'm reading the title in both the Kindle 2 and Kobo -- one chapter per device -- to get a real feel for how the experience is different, if at all. First thing I am noticing: the Kobo is considerably lighter. The Kindle is in a leather case so I can hold it like a book; but the Kobo, naked, is comfortable, too.

[GSteer]

Mines currently displaying page 8 of 198 - but I'm guessing this might be a specific epub footer as it displays "Hal Spacejock - 8 of 198" ...?

Edit: That is probably because this book doesn't have chapters, or at least they're not indexed correctly, hence why it's displaying the correct values for the whole book as it's treating it as one chapter.

[jimr]

That is odd. I wonder if that has anything to do with the way the book was formatted and by whom. Is your ebook in epub or pdf? So far the numbers I see on the screen are for each chapter. Hmmmmm.....

I'd be curious to hear what your final assessment is between the Kobo and Kindle. Obviously the Kindle has lots of extras, but as a basic reader, how do they compare?

edit....that makes sense GSteer

[foghat]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

Well, that's odd. The book I am reading displays pg x of 227 at the bottom of every page. These are pg numbers for the run of the book, not the chapters. There are a dozen chapters. There are also tiny numbers in the right hand margin indicating the pg number.

BTW, I'm reading the title in both the Kindle 2 and Kobo -- one chapter per device -- to get a real feel for how the experience is different, if at all. First thing I am noticing: the Kobo is considerably lighter. The Kindle is in a leather case so I can hold it like a book; but the Kobo, naked, is comfortable, too.

So you can actually see the table of contents and navigate to the various chapters?

If so, it does seem strange, as everything I have seen indicates it just does pages per chapter, unless, as GSteer noted, the ToC is not correctly formed and it treats the whole book as a single chapter.

[GSteer]

Additional: Just converted another PDF -> ePub in Calibre, no ToC (Although book does contain a ToC page, will have to investigate this but it's the conversion not the Kobo) and it displays ePub title with Page of Total Pages at the bottom.

[SensualPoet]

Yes. It's a commercial title from Fictionwise. I am only using epub on Kobo.

On the current page at the bottom: "the title - xx of 227".

Pressing the Menu button offers: Next Chapter, Table of Contents, Previous Chapter, Overview.

Next Chapter and Previous Chapter do exactly what they say.

Table of Contents offers me: Return to current page, a list of the first 10 chapters with a "tick" next to the current one; and right click takes me to the next page with the remaining 6 chapters, and two final "chapters" entitled "About the Author" and "About the Artist".

Overview offers me: the cover, the title, the author, the category, number of words, publication date

Pressing the Display button allows me to adjust font size and style; after a choice I am returned to the page I was reading.

Pressing the Back button returns me to the place I was reading.

When I switch off, I am left with the cover and a caption "Chapter x of 18 - Press power to start reading"

[foghat]

^ Interesting. I wonder why the differences in behavior. Must have something to do with the ebook itself?

Nice to know you can get total number of words in book - part of the reason I want the total number of pages, so I know how long book 'five' is in comparison to book 'one'. Having total number of words will help in this regard.

[PERTU]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

Yes. It's a commercial title from Fictionwise. I am only using epub on Kobo.

On the current page at the bottom: "the title - xx of 227".

Pressing the Menu button offers: Next Chapter, Table of Contents, Previous Chapter, Overview.

Next Chapter and Previous Chapter do exactly what they say.

Table of Contents offers me: Return to current page, a list of the first 10 chapters with a "tick" next to the current one; and right click takes me to the next page with the remaining 6 chapters, and two final "chapters" entitled "About the Author" and "About the Artist".

Overview offers me: the cover, the title, the author, the category, number of words, publication date

Pressing the Display button allows me to adjust font size and style; after a choice I am returned to the page I was reading.

Pressing the Back button returns me to the place I was reading.

When I switch off, I am left with the cover and a caption "Chapter x of 18 - Press power to start reading"

I have a book that does the same as you. Strangely the page count remains the same even if I change the font size.

When I used the small font size each page number are repeated twice. If I use the largest font each number are repeated 4 times.

So I have:
Page 1
Page 1
Page 1
Page 1
Page 2
Page 2
Page 2
Page 2
etc...

I have different text on each page, it's just the number of the page that is repeated.

[Stinger]

The books that you get from Kobo, and transfer to your device using the Kobo desktop app are injected directly into the SQlite database. With these books you get the chapter page counts only.

With regular ePubs you get the entire book page counts.

(At least this is what I remember from an older thread)


@PERTU: I believe the answer to your repeating page number thing is this; Someone at Adobe decided that the mobile software treats, lets say about 3000 characters, as a page ( no idea what the actual number is, not gonna waste my time counting). It uses that static number to generate the page numbers and total pages in a book. You'll notice the most annoying feature of this scheme is the little page numbers that the software draws OVER text on the very right hand side of a line where it considers a new page to start.

The number of times a certain page number will be repeated will usually be consistent, but when you're dealing with a string of pages that are light on text (say, conversation between characters without much narration), it'll take more pages to reach this stupid static number Adobe came up with.

here's the older thread about these annoying page markers:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83588

[artificial]

When reading the books that come with the Kobo it only displays the pages per chapter.

However...

When I read epubs I've loaded to the kobo myself (non-drm epubs), even if they they have chapters the kobo still displays the total number of pages in the entire book, NOT the current chapter. To me this is preferable.

However...

Sometimes the same page number will display for multile page turns. i.e. the page '1' will display for three page turns, page '2' for 3 page turns, and so forth. Not sure what's up with that!

[artificial]

Originally Posted by Stinger

I believe the answer to your repeating page number thing is this; Someone at Adobe decided that the mobile software treats lets say about 3000 characters as a page ( no idea what the actual number is, not gonna waste my time counting). It uses that static number to generate the page numbers and total pages in a book. You'll notice the most annoying feature of this scheme is the little page numbers that the software draws OVER text on the very right hand side of a line where it considers a new page to start.

The number of times a certain page number will be repeated will usually be consistent, but when you're dealing with a string of pages that are light on text (say, conversation between characters without much narration), it'll take more pages to reach this stupid static number Adobe came up with.

Thank you for explaining that!!! Those little overlapping page numbers were annoying the hell out of me!