Pages left in chapter?

[bmbriefs]

I don't own an e-reader, but one thing I've noticed when looking at some at stores is that the page number usually is listed as out of the total pages. I.e. "page 32 of 548." When I read physical books, I often find myself flipping forward to see how many pages I have left in the chapter to see if I should stop there or keep reading through to the end of the chapter. I usually am reading right before bed.

Do any particular e-readers list the number of pages in a chapter? Or is this a standard feature that just needs to be adjusted in the settings?

Thanks!

[ilovejedd]

Haven't noticed it on the PRS-350 or Nook Color and I doubt it's available in other readers. Would certainly be nice to have, though. It's one of the things I like on Stanza (iOS app).

[susan_cassidy]

Probably partly because there is really no specific structure for chapters, and the reader just has to read slightly past the current point in the book to display pages - it doesn't have to load the whole book into memory. It might, but there's no good reason it has to, normally (unless there is a giant <div> tag around the whole thing). So, there is no fixed way to detect the beginning and end of a chapter and relate that to your current reading position. I think some ePub books have each chapter as a separate html file, but I don't believe that that is a requirement.

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

So, there is no fixed way to detect the beginning and end of a chapter and relate that to your current reading position. I think some ePub books have each chapter as a separate html file, but I don't believe that that is a requirement.

It's not a requirement, however, if the epub has a TOC and you select one of the entries in there, it's a requirement that it jumps you to the correct place (beginning of the selected chapter).

All readers kind of build an index of the TOC and they load and parse the entire thing to count pages anyway. That's why on most readers opening a book takes several seconds in the first place.

Making a per chapter page count is entirely possible... only requirement is that the chapters themselves are marked.

Readers just don't support it. Personally, I never needed such a feature. I just stop reading or I just finish the chapter, I don't really try to find out where the next chapter is. Don't do that with paper books either as I would more than likely read the chapter title by doing so and this could serve as a spoiler for the remaining part of the chapter I'm currently reading...

[afv011]

Originally Posted by bmbriefs

I don't own an e-reader, but one thing I've noticed when looking at some at stores is that the page number usually is listed as out of the total pages. I.e. "page 32 of 548." When I read physical books, I often find myself flipping forward to see how many pages I have left in the chapter to see if I should stop there or keep reading through to the end of the chapter. I usually am reading right before bed.

Do any particular e-readers list the number of pages in a chapter? Or is this a standard feature that just needs to be adjusted in the settings?

Thanks!

The Nook STR, Nook Color and Nook Tablet offer this feature. I personally find it very useful, for the same reasons.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by afv011

The Nook STR, Nook Color and Nook Tablet offer this feature. I personally find it very useful, for the same reasons.

Interesting. Will have to check my Nook Color again. On the PRS-350, right now, I have to go to the table of contents and see what page number the next chapter is.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Interesting. Will have to check my Nook Color again. On the PRS-350, right now, I have to go to the table of contents and see what page number the next chapter is.

On the Nook color and tablet taping the screen on the reader brings up a menu that shows the pages left on the chapter. On the STR you tap the screen and then tap on "go to", this brings up a similar dialog with the pages left in chapter. Very convenient.

[Jaden]

The Kobo Touch does that for Kobo ebooks. They show the pages per chapter - and the actual pages as in page turns, so that number will change depending on the size of your font.

If you need to know how far advanced in the book you are, you will have try to judge that from the progress bar in the menu.

This bar also shows when the next chapter will begin - there are a marks but no percentage, so with epubs you will at least be able to roughly estimate how many page turns until the next chapter begins.

ETA: Sleep or power off shows the percentage read of the book.

[JSWolf]

iBooks also shows how many pages until the end of the chapter.

[MickeyC]

The iPad also offers this feature

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cassidym

The iPad also offers this feature

It does? I thought it was just in the iBooks app.

[soulfuldog]

The Kindle doesn't give numbers but it does show a small progress bar at the bottom of the page and within it are marks indicating the chapters, so you can see a visual representation of how close you are to the end of a chapter.

[bmbriefs]

Originally Posted by l_macd

The Kindle doesn't give numbers but it does show a small progress bar at the bottom of the page and within it are marks indicating the chapters, so you can see a visual representation of how close you are to the end of a chapter.

Do most kindle books do this? The kindles I checked out at the store don't seem to do this. It's possilbe those parrticular kindles or the books don't do it, or perhaps there is a setting somewhere that I'm not seeing.

[soulfuldog]

As far as I'm aware it's purely dependent on whether the author/publisher has inserted the chapter marks in the book. They either have them or they don't and there's nothing you can do in the settings to change it.

I've had a few that don't have them, but most seem to. Just checked the books currently on my Kindle (a mix of daily freebies from Amazon, books bought from Amazon and a handful of bought/library epubs converted to mobi) and out of the 25, 8 don't have chapter markings, and 6 of those are freebies.

Edited to add: just to be clear, I have a Kindle 3 (keyboard), and I just assume that the Kindle 4 & Kindle Touch both still include this feature.

[speakingtohe]

The Kindle keyboard also lets you go from one chapter to the next or previous if you are curious. The chapters have to be marked properly but works for many non-Amazon books as well. Uses the 4 way controller.

Helen