Fractional Page Numbering

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jhowell

That is not true. Amazon "locations" each count 150 bytes of HTML3 data in the MOBI7 format as produced by Kindlegen. The same text with different styling will have different location numbers.

But that make locations similar to pBook page numbers where different versions have different page numbers. So if you change something in a Kindle eBook that changes the locations, then you have a different version. Same as with pBooks.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sorry, but no. Not going to work. The regular pBook and the large print pBook are not going to be in the same place 500 words in. You have different text before you get to the start of the story (in the case of a novel) and that right there throws off the count between the two versions.

Start the word count at page one of the actual text of the book. This isn’t a hard thing to grasp.

And the point of the thread is to bridge the gap between ebooks and pbooks with a consistent system which means your beloved ADE is out since it’s improbably difficult for people to count bytes in a physical book.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But that make locations similar to pBook page numbers where different versions have different page numbers. So if you change something in a Kindle eBook that changes the locations, then you have a different version. Same as with pBooks.

Which is irrelevant since the point of the thread is a universal system between ebook and pbook. Also they were correcting the false assertion that Amazon used line counts. Not pointing out issues with using this system for ebooks as compared to pbooks since again the point is to have a system that bridges ebooks and pbooks and in consistent between them. Any system which utilizes bytes to produce a page will fail in this because physical books aren’t measured in bytes primarily because humans can’t measure them without significantly more effort than traditional page numbers or word counts.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Word count is not going to cut it. Not many would like to see page numbers that high. Kobo used to use 340 words = 1 page for KePub until the 4.18.x firmware where it's not 1 screen = 1 page.

I really dislike 1 screen = 1 page for the full book. I don't mind for chapter page numbers. Word count used as page numbers is also a no way. The ending page number would be too high and that won't work for a lot of people.

We have ADE page numbers. Why not just go with that as it works well?

Because with word count you’d do away with pages numbers. You’d be at word x of y, people would adjust.

ADE isn’t used by everyone and is not applicable to physical books which again is the point of this thread. We all know you love ADE but suggesting it where it clearly won’t work is just silly.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Accuracy? There's a reason metric is used in the hard sciences even in the US, to get everyone on the same page, if you'll pardon the pun.

A kilometer is no more "accurate" than a mile. Nor is Celsius more accurate than Fahrenheit. For practical purposes Celsius is perceived as less accurate, since the range between 32 and 212 is wider than the range between 0 and 100.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Got it. Thanks! I was just blind. It works on both the PW3 and my Voyage. Always a whole number or x.5. (Never any other fraction.) Every ten pages or so it'll jump from x.5 to the next x.5 (skipping of the whole number). I guess it rounds up. I don't know how much work this is, but I like it.

I think I need to clarify a bit.

The only differences between this book and normal (real book) page numbering is that
there are twice as many page number anchors in the text and in the references (page-map or pagelist). Half are exactly the same as usual and half have been added in between. That is why readers that count page references think there are twice as many pages. The devices are not doing anything fancy, and I am not trying to trick them into doing anything. The trick is that the page name is somewhat arbitrary, so it turns out that "23.5" works. When the epub is converted to kindle format with kindlegen everything works, including goto page 17.5

In principle finer divisions can be used. I think quarter pages would be a practical limit.

I do think that an ordinary apnx could be rewritten to be divided arbitrarily (but fixed amount) between existing pages. 0.1 page increments might be nice. Such a book/apnx pair could NOT be converted bto EPUB since the book text would not have fractional page targets in that case.

Originally Posted by rcentros

On the three ePub devices I've tried — a Tolino Shine 2, Nook Glowlight Plus (2015) and Sony PRS-T2, each get pretty much the same result. They all "double" the page numbers (557 pages instead of 562). The Tolino and Nook then always use a whole page number. At the "standard" font size, each screen tap changes the page number. Bigger fonts result in the number staying the same for more than one screen tap, smaller fonts result in page jumps with screen taps. (41 to 44, etc.) — these are at the extreme settings. The T2 does its "thing" with page numbers. Where it straddles a page it'll have something like 34-35 (it very rarely lands on a whole number). But like the others, it doubles the page number (556 instead of 557?).

The ePub information is probably all useless but I thought you might be interested in the results.

It's useful and interesting to me and made me realize my epub devices were not counting screens, but adding up all the "pages" which is double. I was confused because my devices usually take about 2 screens for each page.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by rcentros

A kilometer is no more "accurate" than a mile. Nor is Celsius more accurate than Fahrenheit. For practical purposes Celsius is perceived as less accurate, since the range between 32 and 212 is wider than the range between 0 and 100.

Ah I thought you were talking about switching from page numbers to word counts, or some other system.

Though accuracy still applies. While 32F is 32F, and 32C is 32C, 32F is very much not 32C. Each system is accurate, but it's generally good if people observing something (temperature, or book progress) use the same system. Which is again why the hard sciences use one system rather than whichever the scientist happens to like better.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

All I have done is point out that existing devices will display, in addition to roman numerals and ascii integers, page numbers such as 4.5 (and I assume 13b).

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Okay, 13b I can see some use for.

Good that you were testing that. I never really messed with much beyond your usual Roman Numerals + basic numbers.

I did not test anything similar to "13b", and I think my statement was reasonably clear.

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Well, initially you said:

"and still show change for each ebook page turn."

This made me think you were trying to emulate some sort of "Screens", but hardcoding even more of them. So you would arbitrarily split every page into .1, .2, .3, to try to get closer to a "screen per page".

Still would recommend against that because it would interfere with blind readers who want to skip to next pages.

Sorry for any confusion. Not sure how I could have worded it to be more clear.

But isn't skip 1.0 page arbitrary? Is there presently a way to skip 1 paper page while reading a reflowable ebook on a device showing less than 1 page per screen? Would skipping half a page be that bad?

[jhowell]

Back to the original topic of this thread, one place where fractional page numbers will not work is in Amazon's KFX (Enhanced Typesetting) format.

Kfxgen restricts page labels to be either integers or roman numerals. Anything else in the source EPUB will be rejected. Even a single incorrect entry will cause the entire pagemap/pagelist to be rejected resulting in no page numbers being shown at all.

[leebase]

FYI - the "switching to word counts" was my solution to MY use case: how big is this book?

% completed is just fine as far as I'm concerned for telling me "how are are you along in this book".

I just want to know "how big is the book" and the term I've been conditioned to is pages. Even though "pages" has never been exact science.

So I'll try to train myself to understand what word count a small, medium, large book has

[Quoth]

Divide word count by 200 or 300 (stick with one option) for a comparable estimate of pages, depending on what size page and font? Maybe even 100 for 6" x 9" and 9 pt?

[rem736]

Originally Posted by jhowell

That is not true. Amazon "locations" each count 150 bytes of HTML3 data in the MOBI7 format as produced by Kindlegen. The same text with different styling will have different location numbers.

i stand corrected. didn't check my source. but your 150 bytes is also iffy because i found another source claiming 125 characters (including spaces). so i really don't know anymore.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Start the word count at page one of the actual text of the book. This isn’t a hard thing to grasp.

And the point of the thread is to bridge the gap between ebooks and pbooks with a consistent system which means your beloved ADE is out since it’s improbably difficult for people to count bytes in a physical book.

Still not going to work. The eBook software will not know where that page one is.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Which is irrelevant since the point of the thread is a universal system between ebook and pbook. Also they were correcting the false assertion that Amazon used line counts. Not pointing out issues with using this system for ebooks as compared to pbooks since again the point is to have a system that bridges ebooks and pbooks and in consistent between them. Any system which utilizes bytes to produce a page will fail in this because physical books aren’t measured in bytes primarily because humans can’t measure them without significantly more effort than traditional page numbers or word counts.

Again so very very very wrong. The idea is not to have the same page numbers between eBooks and pBooks. The idea is to have consistent page numbers for eBooks and ADE page numbers is that consistent page number system.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Because with word count you’d do away with pages numbers. You’d be at word x of y, people would adjust.

ADE isn’t used by everyone and is not applicable to physical books which again is the point of this thread. We all know you love ADE but suggesting it where it clearly won’t work is just silly.

pBooks are not the issue. They have nothing to do with eBook page numbers. Drop pBooks from this.

You have to modify the reading program to change how the page numbers work. Given there are a lot of devices that use RMSDK and then there is ADE itself, it would be easier to adopt ADE page numbers since they work and work well.