PDF eBook issues

[forsooth]

Hi, folks...

I purchased an ebook from Wrox -- Beginning PHP 5.3, which I think is going to be a great book.

My problem is that the Table of Contents page numbers and the Index page numbers are not "hot-linked" to actual book pages. There are 841 PDF pages, but the actual book only has 803 pages (starting on actual page 1). Thus there is a 38-page difference.

For example, "creating HTML tables" is on page 450. I have to add 38 to 450, then type 488 in the "locator box." I hit the return key, and I am taken to book-page 450 (PDF-page 488). What a hassle.

Contrast this with O'Reilly ebooks, where all pages are hot-linked. Thus, just click on a page number in the TOC or the Index, and <click>, you're there.

Are there any plans to bring Wrox ebooks up to this level of reader convenience? Before I purchase my next Wrox ebook, I need to have this feature available.

Thanks!

[DavidM]

Thank you for the note, Forsooth. We are indeed working on this exact issue. A group of us have been working out the best plan for indexes in e-books, and right now we have our production team looking into how these would get built.

Also, I agree that the page numbering mis-match is a hassle. That was not on our hot list, but I'll see if we can escalate the issue. It's coming from the way books have been numbered for decades, with the front matter (table of contents, brief table of contents, credits page, author bios, acknowledgements, full title, half title, and introduction) having Roman numerals and "page one" being the first page after that. The e-book reader sees them all as pages and the software is not smart enough to read the page number, so it offsets the actual page number by the number of pages used in those front matter pieces.

I'm not a production guy, but maybe there's a way to force the software to recognize the true page one of a book. Another alternative would be to move all of the front matter to the back, but then you'll end up hunting for the table of contents and many readers won't find it if we bury it in the back. The alternative that probably makes the most sense to the reader, renumbering the pages to start at 1, 2, 3 instead of i, ii, iii, is the most expensive and time consuming option.

We'll be looking at all of these options as more of our books are converted to e-book format. You shouldn't have to work that hard just to read the book.

Thanks again for sharing your concerns.

[jminatel]

Forsooth: We're not getting the same page number discrepancy on our testing here. The first handful of pages have special numbering (C1 and C2 for cover one and cover 2; roman numerals i-xxvi for the rest of the pages before "page 1") so when I go to page "1" in the PDF, it's actually the same as page 1 of the printed book. Likewise, any page after that - I've attached a screen grab of page 102 in the PDF which is the book page 102 - matches.
If you're getting a different result, we want to work through this with you and find out why.

As for the linked TOC, we're looking at it. We had thought most users would use the bookmark navigation pane rather than the TOC pages themselves.

If you want to discuss further, happy to work with you directly. You can email me at jminatel at wiley dot com.

[forsooth]

Hey, thanks for replying. Good to know good customer service is alive and well at Wrox!!

I didn't explain myself well enough previously, so I will communicate directly so that you can see what I mean.

Thanks again!