Sick of Amazon Kindle books without Page Numbers...

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sure you'll get over the disappointment one day.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sorry you made the poll only about Kindle books. This means I cannot vote as I read ePub.

But look on the bright side. You've managed to take the opportunity to engage in some evangelism for EPub and even ADE. Impressive.

Having said that, it appears that the vast majority like to have some indication of progress at least available to them if not visible. Some do prefer that indication to be page numbers. Only the OP seems to want page numbers identical with the page numbers in some edition of a print book.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by darryl

But look on the bright side. You've managed to take the opportunity to engage in some evangelism for EPub and even ADE. Impressive.

Having said that, it appears that the vast majority like to have some indication of progress at least available to them if not visible. Some do prefer that indication to be page numbers. Only the OP seems to want page numbers identical with the page numbers in some edition of a print book.

What surprises me is that I almost never use page numbers in a print (fiction) book, either. Sure, if I am setting a "mental" bookmark, I want to know a page number; but I'm more likely to simply slap a physical bookmark in it than I am to stare at the page number, pondering the imponderable mysteries of how long it will take me to read the rest, or, that MUCH bigger question--how many pages left in the chapter?

I don't get the obsession with "real" page numbers. Other than non-fic bookmarking/footnotes/reference indicia, what difference does it make? The idea of a page, in an eBook, is so far beyond illusory that it's absurd. Hell, you wouldn't even likely get the same page counts for the same book on a Voyage and a PPW, and those two are 1st-degree cousins.


{shrug}

Hitch

[eschwartz]

Page numbers are only useful in academic citations, as a legacy burden of paper formats.

Thinking back, I never really notice them at all -- even Time Left To Read which is Kindle's superior alternative, is something I don't actually notice as much as I thought I might.

I might not go quite as far as DiapDealer went, but he raises an interesting point nonetheless:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I wasn't able to achieve that level of blissful ignorance with physical books, so that's just one more thing for the "why I switched to ebooks" column.

[darryl]

Hitch and eschwartz. As happens regularly, I find myself in agreement with both of you. So-called "real" page numbers are meaningless. In an epub or mobi type ebook where the reader has some control over attributes like the font size, page numbers are arbitrary and just one of any number of means of giving the reader some idea of their progress. As DiapDealer pointed out, there is no need for this to even be visible at all times, though preferences will vary.

The other and more essential purpose served by page numbers was for purposes of reference, citation etc. In EBooks page numbers are once again less than ideal. The problem is not new or unique. In common law legal systems where case law precedents are important citations were traditionally to pages of published law reports, sometimes to a passage as small as a paragraph. When such case law took to the net this became ridiculous and unworkable. This Wikipedia article discusses the various solutions adopted, some themselves far from ideal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_c...utral_citation It may be that we do need some format neutral citation standard for all books. If so, I will leave it for those more informed than myself as to what the best standard may be.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by darryl

Hitch and eschwartz. As happens regularly, I find myself in agreement with both of you.

Of course! With great intelligence comes the great responsibility of agreeing with other mental giants around you. <snicker>.

Spoiler:

Sorry, I'm just having a whacky day.

So-called "real" page numbers are meaningless. In an epub or mobi type ebook where the reader has some control over attributes like the font size, page numbers are arbitrary and just one of any number of means of giving the reader some idea of their progress. As DiapDealer pointed out, there is no need for this to even be visible at all times, though preferences will vary.

I've always thought that having a calculation, if it could be put in the firmware, so you could push a button (tap, whatever) asking "how much time left in chapter," or "how many pages remaining," or something, would be more useful than the print page number/location/ADE page number kerfuffle. OTOH, when I think about that, it starts feeling a little too twee.

The other and more essential purpose served by page numbers was for purposes of reference, citation etc. In EBooks page numbers are once again less than ideal. The problem is not new or unique. In common law legal systems where case law precedents are important citations were traditionally to pages of published law reports, sometimes to a passage as small as a paragraph. When such case law took to the net this became ridiculous and unworkable. This Wikipedia article discusses the various solutions adopted, some themselves far from ideal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_c...utral_citation It may be that we do need some format neutral citation standard for all books. If so, I will leave it for those more informed than myself as to what the best standard may be.

I confess I am replying to this prior to scoping out the Wikipedia article, but I've always thought that IF (and, hooooooooooo boy, is this a pipe dream in this regard) we could get Amazon, iBooks, B&N, etc., to all agree (or...maybe the IDPF???) that a PAGE = X characters, we could cut through a boatload of this s**t. I mean, it is relatively simple, albeit time-consuming to create id's for each new page. And, in fact, if I knew that it was going to be X characters, we could write a clip to do this auto-magically. Then, page X would be the SAME DAMN PAGE on every e-reader. We can't do it with printed pages, because, as pointed out, those are different in each edition, as well.

If TPTB in eBooking could just say, for this ONE purpose--for research, citations, et al, we all concur that a page is equivalent to the character count of 250 words (say, 1250 chars plus X for the usual/typical spaces between words)...how could that be easier? Yes, we'd all have to agree that the count starts with the first word of the first chapter, or something, but still...that would solve a crapload of problems in citations. I think, sometimes, about people trying to have a coherent discussion with Peter on an iPad, Joe on an iPhone, Suzie on a B&N Color HD, Janie on an older Nook color, and Fred (of course it's Fred) on a Kobo Aura, or whatever. What a damn nightmare.

Right now, you have to agree on the "printed version" numbering, and go from there. bookmakers like me have to go in and plug in the page number ID's at the commencement of each page, based on what the INDD export pumps out, OR, manually, if we're going from PDF.

It's ridiculous. This is one of those topics that really makes my blood boil because it would be bloody easy to solve. AND, the agreement wouldn't "hurt" anyone, because *everyone* would be accommodating it, as no one currently is using that mechanism. No one of the retailers would be lording it over the others--they could all whine about it equally. The very definition of compromise! :-)

</mini-rant>

Hitch

[DrNefario]

Now I track page counts, I do find it mildly annoying when a book doesn't have them, but it never bothered me at all before they did that. As a reader I really only care about two things: the overall scale of the project, and how far through it I am. Both of those were handled reasonably well by my kindle before they added page number support. The dot trail told me if a book was long, and the percentage told me where I was. I guess by adding real page numbers they've actually stopped people from becoming familiar with Locations.

At the moment, it's slightly more annoying to me when a book does have page numbers but they are hopelessly inaccurate. I've just finished a "622-page" ePub whose shortest paper equivalent is 719 pages. It means I need to decide whether to correct for the inaccuracy or just go with the lower count. I've done the latter this time, but the former with other recent examples.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Hitch

.......
I've always thought that having a calculation, if it could be put in the firmware, so you could push a button (tap, whatever) asking "how much time left in chapter," or "how many pages remaining," or something, would be more useful than the print page number/location/ADE page number kerfuffle. OTOH, when I think about that, it starts feeling a little too twee.

That's suspiciously like the way Kobos handle pages etc.

Originally Posted by Hitch

It's ridiculous. This is one of those topics that really makes my blood boil because it would be bloody easy to solve. AND, the agreement wouldn't "hurt" anyone, because *everyone* would be accommodating it, as no one currently is using that mechanism. No one of the retailers would be lording it over the others--they could all whine about it equally. The very definition of compromise! :-)

</mini-rant>

Hitch

ERROR : missing opening tag: <mini-rant>

BobC

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I confess I am replying to this prior to scoping out the Wikipedia article, but I've always thought that IF (and, hooooooooooo boy, is this a pipe dream in this regard) we could get Amazon, iBooks, B&N, etc., to all agree (or...maybe the IDPF???) that a PAGE = X characters, we could cut through a boatload of this s**t.

ADE does this now. It does use 1024 compressed characters = 1 page. B&N uses ADE so they already do this. It's iBooks that cannot do proper page numbers and Kindle that does make believe page numbers (when they bother to do page numbers).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BobC

That's suspiciously like the way Kobos handle pages etc.

This is not something particular to Kobo. It's part of RMDSK (ADE) that Kobo, B&N, Sony, and others use.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

ADE does this now. It does use 1024 compressed characters = 1 page. B&N uses ADE so they already do this. It's iBooks that cannot do proper page numbers and Kindle that does make believe page numbers (when they bother to do page numbers).

1024 un-compressed characters OF HTML MARKUP. Which helps very little, when the same rendered text can be produced with varying volumes of markup. Consider Kobo's penchant for surrounding everything with extra paragraph spans, and you can quickly see how 1024 characters of a Kobo book will never match 1024 characters of a different vendor's epub. Not to mention style parameters being used inline VS style primarily applied via CSS. Characters VS Entities. No, I'm afraid Adobe's 1024-characters-of-uncompressed-html = 1 "page" doesn't come close to providing a "one unit to rule them all" solution. For a character-count-based solution, nothing short of a rendered character count would suffice (which I'm sure is what Hitch was suggesting).

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

ADE does this now. It does use 1024 compressed characters = 1 page. B&N uses ADE so they already do this. It's iBooks that cannot do proper page numbers and Kindle that does make believe page numbers (when they bother to do page numbers).

Supposedly, for certain titles, Kindle book page numbers match up with a specific print edition. It's noted in the book description "with actual page numbers based on ISBN etc." I haven't verified the accuracy of the pagination.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is not something particular to Kobo. It's part of RMDSK (ADE) that Kobo, B&N, Sony, and others use.

Which part? The first part of what BobC quoted sounded more like the way kepubs are handled. The second part explicitly mentioned ADE page numbers

[barryem]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

But much more useful to me would be progress indicators and stats based on word counts, which would remain meaningful across all formats of the book whether paper, ebook, or audiobook.

Word counts wouldn't be consistent between audiobooks and other books. They often remove things like "he said" and similar things in audiobooks. In most cases they'd still be fairly close but in books rich with dialog they might not be all that close.

Barry

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

ADE does this now. It does use 1024 compressed characters = 1 page. B&N uses ADE so they already do this. It's iBooks that cannot do proper page numbers and Kindle that does make believe page numbers (when they bother to do page numbers).

It feels like Wonderland in here, now.
This is the first time I've ever heard anyone moan about how Kindles are doing it wrong and wishing they were more like ADE.

How is it the Kindle which does "make believe" page numbers "when they bother to do them at all"?
The Kindle only does page numbers when an APNX exists -- which is translated from an NCX PageList or Adobe Page-map.

The big difference between Kindle and ADE-based readers is that when the Kindle doesn't have publisher-provided page numbers, it doesn't lie and give you make believe page numbers instead.

...

You wanna complain about make believe page numbers? How about not being the pothead calling the kettle white!

But as darryl said:

Originally Posted by darryl

You've managed to take the opportunity to engage in some evangelism for EPub and even ADE. Impressive.

Although I think this going too far and into cheating.