{"id":347,"date":"2008-12-29T19:08:35","date_gmt":"2008-12-30T00:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=347"},"modified":"2025-07-31T18:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T23:11:12","slug":"a-rose-by-any-other-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/a-rose-by-any-other-name\/","title":{"rendered":"A rose by any other name"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s been a lot of discussion lately about the definition of a \u201cbook,\u201d or more specifically, the proper formatting of an e-book<\/a>, and the definition of a \u201cpage\u201d<\/a> and its importance in the New eWorld Order.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m here to tell you: Unless it\u2019s on paper or in PDF, they ain\u2019t no such thing as a page.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit that it took me a while to get used to reading on my eBookWise. Between the whacked-out spacing and the left justification and the lack of paragraph indents, it looked \u2026 sloppy. Inferior. But I stuck with it and realized that each book is formatted differently; some are prettier and easier to read than others, but mostly not. I did, however, have problems even with the \u201cprettiest\u201d of the formatting. I was able to adjust my expectations of the presentation once I realized it was a function of the DEVICE and that the DEVICE was not a print book. The print book and the e-book simply have nothing in common except the words they contain: not headers, not footers, not design, not formatting, not \u2026 page numbers.<\/p>\n

To use the \u201cpage\u201d as common ground, each user must have the same edition of a paper book and\/or the same edition of the PDF file, but that\u2019s a fairly easy task to accomplish.<\/p>\n

In any other format, however, it\u2019s nearly impossible without each user having the same device, the same font settings (i.e., large or small), the same page view settings. Gentlemen, let\u2019s synchronize our devices.<\/em> Taking the probability of that into account, then, the concept of the \u201cpage\u201d vanishes.<\/p>\n

The latest argument I have seen for the need for strict pagination in e-books to approximate or duplicate that of a print book is for reference books and the uses of academia viz. for annotation and bibliography, tables of contents and indices, footnotes and end notes. What this demonstrates to me is ignorance or lack of vision or an inability to understand the vast differences in the format, and the capabilities and limitations of each.<\/p>\n

ANNOTATION and BIBLIOGRAPHY<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"A
a \u201cquad\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When your bishop or your preacher or your pastor or your minister or other Protestant-type ecclesiastical leader gets up and wants everybody to flip open their Bibles, does s\/he say, \u201cPlease turn to page 1436 in your Bible\u201d? No. He says, \u201cRomans chapter 15.\u201d (Cause that\u2019s where mine is. In the King James Version. What if you prefer to use a different version? No problem! Romans chapter 15 is still where it\u2019s supposed to be, which is between Romans 14 and Romans 16.)<\/p>\n

\"CoverWhen your English lit professor or your director or your acting coach directs you to a certain passage in a Shakespearean play, does he say, \u201cPlease turn to Hamlet<\/em>, page 783\u201d? No. (Well, first of all, he\u2019s OBVIOUSLY working from an anthology if it has 783 pages to begin with.) He says, \u201cPlease turn to Act 2, Scene 2, Line 35.\u201d So what this means is I was smart and brought my little bitty Hamlet<\/em> and everybody else was stupid and brought their big fat anthologies. And it makes no difference whatsoever.<\/p>\n

The two print books, Bible and Shakespearean anthology, have page numbers. But they aren\u2019t referred to or necessary for annotation or bibliography. In fact, the only thing they\u2019re used for is within the book itself to create tables of contents and indices.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s talk about that.<\/p>\n

TABLES OF CONTENTS, INDICES, and FOOT\/END NOTES<\/strong><\/div>\n

There\u2019s only one thing a table of contents and\/or index is good for: To find your place in the book. Thing is, in a print book, that\u2019s the only<\/em> way you can find anything \u2026 maybe kinda sorta quickly.<\/p>\n

In an e-book, the tables of contents and indices have completely different purposes. In fact, an index isn\u2019t even necessary in an e-book, although I would argue that a table of contents is. However, their function and mechanism of use are entirely different from that of a print book.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It\u2019s called a hyperlink.<\/strong>\n
      \n
    • Now, don\u2019t be scared. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen them before here and elsewhere on the interwebz. You put your cursor over it and click and boom \u2026 you\u2019re somewhere else on the interwebz. Cool, huh?<\/li>\n
    • You can do that in an ebook, too.<\/li>\n
    • A list of hyperlinks in the beginning of the e-book serves the same function as the table of contents serves in a print book. A print book has page numbers after the chapter name. An e-book has a hyperlink you touch with your stylus and boom, you\u2019re there, same as it works on the interwebz. No page numbers? No problem! Not necessary at all<\/em>.<\/li>\n
    • But hyperlinks are good within the text, too. If a word is hyperlinked, you touch it with your stylus and it takes you to further reading. They used to be called \u201cfootnotes\u201d and \u201cend notes.\u201d Don\u2019t need those anymore, either. Oh, they\u2019re still footnotes and end notes, but they have no precise structure because it\u2019s not necessary. The device will take you where you need to go.
       <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
    • It\u2019s called the \u201cfind\u201d function.<\/strong>\n
        \n
      • You can\u2019t do this in a print book. There is no CTRL-F. There is no \u201cFind.\u201d You go to the table of contents and\/or the index and if you\u2019re lucky, that book had an excellent indexer. If you\u2019re not, well, good luck to you then. I\u2019m going out to get some Chinese while you look for that reference. Want anything?<\/li>\n
      • Is there an e-reading device that doesn\u2019t have a \u201cfind\u201d function? If there is, smash it and get something else, \u2019cause there is no point to an e-reading device without a \u201cfind\u201d function. Because why? Because there are no page numbers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        If the argument (with regard to reference material) is that e-reference books can\u2019t be annotated or bibliographed or referenced, there\u2019s a simple way around that. Organize the book in some other fashion, a la the Bible or Shakespeare. It\u2019s been done. The system\u2019s only been around for a few hundred years now. If it ain\u2019t on paper, it ain\u2019t got pages.<\/p>\n

        And if it\u2019s inevitable, just lay back and enjoy it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        There\u2019s been a lot of discussion lately about the definition of a \u201cbook,\u201d or more specifically, the proper formatting of an e-book, and the definition of a \u201cpage\u201d and its importance in the New eWorld Order. I\u2019m here to tell you: Unless it\u2019s on paper or in PDF, they ain\u2019t no such thing as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[529,222,532],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-production","category-ebooks","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17045,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/17045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}