When adding a book, how many pages should be including for the page count? Do we just go with the highest number actually listed in the book, or do we include blank pages at the end (e.g., because the number of pages with content didn’t line up to a full use of sheets (or whatever they’re called))? Do we include the cover/backcover?
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Usually books seem to count every page, whether blank or not, after the cover.
Those pages often don’t have page numbers though, and neither have empty pages at the end.
I’d say every page between the cover and backcover should be part of the page count, regardless of it’s content.
I’m personally not sure about this. I think the total number of pages is more useful, given that Roman numbering may be used alongside Arabic numbering, and unnumbered pages may be present at the start and end of the book.
However, asking editors to count these additional pages could be a lot of work. On the other hand, that’s already true for the dimension and weight data, so I’m leaning towards saying that the page count should be the total number of pages.
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Are you including the cover in that? (Some book page counts do include cover, but some (most?) don’t.)
Would it be tricky to support both?
[ ] Page Count (numbered)
[ ] Page Count (total including cover)
Or similar. Just wondering 
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I wouldn’t include the cover in that, no - I don’t have a clear reason why, but I consider the “pages” to be the actual book content - the (usually) identical sheets that have the writing on, rather than the (usually) different material that makes up the cover.
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Not at all - the only potential issue is cluttering the UI and confusing editors. Can you think of a way we can distinguish these (perhaps clearly different field names?) in the UI?
To be honest (numbered) and (total) is probably the most concise way I can think of labeling it without really getting stuck in the weeds…
Maybe a mouse over ‘tooltip’ that is a bit more long-form as well?
eg
"how many pages the book has according to the last printed page number"
“how many pages the book has total, including the front and back cover (usually more pages than the printed page count)”
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Ideally, it would be best if we can very briefly describe what the pages are. What I’m thinking is along the lines of:
- Front cover
- Pages 1-6 = Front matter
2.1 Page 1 = blank page
2.2 Page 2 = title page
2.3 Page 3 = copyright information
2.4 Pages 4-6 = ToC - Pages 7-501 = Content (could also be sub-labelled into chapters/sections)
- Page 502-505 = blank pages
- Back cover
This makes the data more meaningful and gives an idea of what a publication contains.
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With hardcovers, I’ve been counting all the pages in between the endpapers. Paperbacks, which don’t have endpapers, I’d count everything in between the front and back covers.
For describing the pages, we’d want to first define the different types. This is useful for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Book_structure
generally I use the number stated in places like https://www.bookdepository.com/William-Shakespeare-s-Star-Wars/9781594746376 which I don’t know if counts the blank pages or not, or the stated, last, number in the book (ignoring any unnumbered pages after)
as these are unambiguous facts that can be referenced.
~ Cat
(I don’t know why I picked that book at all, just random search o_O)
When I have the book infront of me, I tend to use the very last printed page numeral. even if there are blank (or even printed!) pages after - my reasoning is that this is unambiguous, difference could be the be disambiguating bit in different revisions and it will be easy to see if you have the exact same edition as someone else; naturally like in musicreleases books will also have situations where same number and date is used for different revisions
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Hello. Just joined up and am reading up on things. I saw this topic and thought I’d add another oar in the spokes, or whatever the metaphor is.
I have at least a couple of books that have multiple separately-numbered sections. ie, where the pages are numbered from 1 to nnn and then start again from 1 for a second section.
I also have books that have numeral-numbered introduction sections before the decimal-numbered main part.
This means that simply reading off the last page number shown is not going to cover all cases. Not to mention the unnumbered pages before, after and between sections.
An example of the first case is " Edgeworks 4" (Hardback, at least) by Harlan Ellison - it’s a compilation of two volumes which are themselves both earlier compiled works. The two “sub works” are numbered separately.
I can’t think of an example of the second case, but it’s much more common so shouldn’t be hard to find.
The “index” approach referenced by silentbird above would cover it, but would also be useful to list total pages regardless of content, excluding cover.
Nobody asked, so I’m gonna cut in with a thread I started many years ago about e-book page count:
#1
Having come from musicbrainz/discogs community I’m quite petrified to see how fluid seems to be the standardization for e-books.
I tried to find out what’s the actual page count for some of the retail editions that I got from [***] by comparing the site meta-data with some stores and readers. These are the results:
https://i.imgur.com/H1cGxAn.pngAn utter chaos, no pattern whatsoever. I’ve excluded the Icecream Reader for Windows because that’s the only one that changes the page count according to font size. Everything else states a fixed number of pages. And almost every single time it’s a different number for exactly the same book edition.
So how does it work? The publisher releases untouched version to retailers and then they modify the book as they please? What about the readers? If the page count doesn’t change with the font size then why the difference between mobile and win readers?
#2
Page count also changes with the size of the display. Page count is an absolutely useless value for ebooks in reflowable formats, and generally has no bearing on anything whatsoever. A “page” is relative in this case anyway, since you’re not looking at a discrete sheet of mashed and pressed dead tree with text on it. Different software may calculate pages by number of words / expected words per page, or something like that, and that value isn’t always static across software and platforms. And that’s just one reason they may differ.
Its usefulness comes with PDFs and the like, where pagination actually makes a difference and is an important part of the book.
#3
Adobe (ADE) style page number do not change with the size of the display, the font size, line height or margins. The page numbering is based on 1024 compressed bytes. So the page numbers for ePub when using ADE remain the same. So the page numbers posted for ePub using ADE are correct and will not change unless the ePub is modified.
#2
“Correct” is also relative. I edited my post above to give another way that software can calculate it.
The fact remains that page numbers for flowable formats are useless.
#3
ADE based page number are static. If you have an ePub, all RMDSK (ADE) based software will give you the same page numbers for every platform. So using RMDSK based software you can get /the same page numbers. That includes iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, & OSX. Now using a program such as iBooks on iOS (bad idea lousy program), would give you different page numbers. But using RMDSK and you will have the same page numbers. When I post here, I use the page number I get from ADE. So anyone who downloads an ePub I post and uses ADE can get the same page number to verify that I have it correct. RMDSK (ADE) is the number one software used for reading ePub. Sony, Kobo, B&N, Pocketbnook, Bookeen, and others all use RMDSK for their Readers.
Page numbers for ePub are worthless unless they are ADE style page numbers.
#4
There are 3 ways to display real corresponding print page numbers in an ePub: ADE’s page-map, DAISY, and ePub 3.
MobileRead Wiki - Page numbers
It’s been a while since I’ve used an eReader, though ADE 4 for the desktop still supports only ADE’s page-map. iBooks I believe, supports only ePub 3 (on iOS, doesn’t display in iBooks for OS X).
#5
I really do wish there was a reliable and well-embraced alternative to pagecount for flowable ebooks. I regularly want to have a sense of how long a book is, before I start reading it. Word count is a weird one, and filesize is no real help in gauging the length of a book’s text.
#4
The likely followed standard will be some way to display corresponding print pages. As there are 3 methods (plus one for Kindle), 2 of which have been around for a bit and not added to the ePub spec, ePub 3 is the future. Not well supported yet though Adobe is lagging; it’s up to them.
The DAISY addition to ncx (or ADE’s page-map) are the simplest to implement and what I would have liked to see. The ePub 3 nav document is a bit of a pain to make, not many tools that I’m aware of (there is a Sigil plugin, InDesign the possible common method for producing ePubs I’m not sure about), and ePub 3’s that use few new features should be backwards compatible.
#6
I have tended to use the ADE measure in the past for my uploads. It’s good for at least an idea. Some epubs have actual print page numbers in them, which you can find if you look closely enough at the source. Don’t know if ADE uses those when they’re available, or just always uses its estimated version.
#4
Unless someone wants a count other than what follows print, ePub 3 already has it so we just have to wait for more support.
#3
ePub 3 does not have these mythical page numbers. ePub 3 has a page map which ePub 2 does as well. A page map is used mostly to simulate a pBook version’s page numbers. What I use is the page number I get from viewing ePub in ADE.
If it is a KF8 eBook, I use the page number Amazon displays.
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fwiw https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/BB-478 mentions that for non-physical editions, the section on physical data (of-which page-numbers are a part) should be disabled.
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The decision on Bookogs was to exclude page counts for eBooks as they are highly variable and ultimately meaningless.
To give an example: I own a Kobo Libra H2O and download my eBooks as ascm files. I don’t think I have ever seen a page count that correlates to the data listed on Goodreads, Amazon, or worldcat.org which normally list disparate page counts for the same eBook.
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I agree that physical attributes (including page count) should be moot for eBooks.
If it is too ambiguous or too complicated to define what page count means for an eBook so that a user can enter it serenely, and too complex to judge and correct afterwards, then I’d rather leave it out.
To get a sense of a book’s “length”, I’d then suggest hoping there’s a physical edition of the same work.
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