Home / Is there a way to show paragraph numbers in Epub files

It’s necessary to find exact point in a book

SumatraPDF is a viewer of paragraphs in epubs
However epubs don’t always need to have countable paragraphs.
If you view them in different ways the paragraph at end of one page may be the same contined as the start of next page.

Most readers don’t need to keep counts of paragraphs (just pages) but in epubs (like in web pages) the lengths may not be fixed. So when reflowed the page totals keep changing. The simplest way to consider breaks, is as Chapters and most tables of contents work with those.
If you look at a table of contents in reflow mode the page values may constantly shift but the number count of chapters stays the same.

There is a Calibre forum discussion related to Calibre-generated APNX however I don’t think even Calibre attempts to count paragraphs, since[I am corrected by comment below] even character counting can itself be highly variable, However Calibre developer said “The more accurate APNX algorithm will be substantially different because it only looks at visible characters and checks for paragraph tags”

There is no “standard” for a paragraph marker, they could for line printers, potentially be identified as a \r\n\i or \n\r\i or just \r\r control sequence, but in HTML it is commonly </p><p> and then again there could be nothing or any thing between them.

Hi
If I wanted Calibre then I wouldn’t use Sumatra… And yes Calibre does offer Paragraph count, which BTW does not change with reflow (that is why it’s better than page numbering) & is VERY much needed when reading text-book or legal material.

So unless you’re looking for more weak excuses, I suggest you start working to add an option to enable showing paragraph count.

Thanks
Y. W.

Thanks for the info I have corrected my comment above.

As a user, just like you, I have no ability to change the program, as an open source application any of us can add all the features found in Acrobat or Calibre. Its just a Small Matter Of Programming

However I suspect they would individually be faster and then become the only PDF or ePub goto apps.

I downloaded and unpacked the 717 files that a full 32.bit Calibre installs (by comparison I normally use the one 64bit.exe version of SumatraPDF)

Not a fair test but simply to check for known failings with paragraph counts.
I tested only two edge cases of e-Pub. One based on 73 image pages where Calibre said it had total 73 paragraphs. That was as expected so I switched to a more complex technical ePub and noted in the viewer I can only get paragraphs per chapter thus I would need to keep my own totals, also internally each chapter had miscounts since each cell of tables or other split lines were incorrectly counted as many paragraphs, but other text pages with multiple distinct areas had no paragraph counts. I would thus need to keep compensating for the perceived paragraph count by widely varying degrees.

Again in fairness it is NOT described as a paragraph count but is more akin to auto Go To # destinations, However those could be added much more accurately in any ePub editor including Calibre, then those could be used to replace the Go To Page with Named/Numbered Destination function in any viewer including SumatraPDF.

@GitHubRulesOK ,

I must applaud your patience and decorum when responding to these entitled people demanding a feature to be added to a piece of software that they paid … um … NOTHING for. Krzysctof has done a phenomenal job with Sumatra and if every feature from every other reader were incorporated, it would become just as bloated, unsecure and resource intensive as they are. If some other package has a feature that is really important to you - USE THAT SOFTWARE! Life is nothing but a series of compromises - learn to embrace it rather than whine about it.

I would suggest to @yw1971 to learn some etiquette, download the FREE source code and add the feature themselves (or hire a professional programmer to do it - perhaps then, he/she will realize just what is involved in a SMOP).

Russ

Russ Thanks

It would perhaps be useful if “Feature requests” were directed to a Page that explains that for Reproducing Adobe Features consider the following.

Team Adobe have over 20,000 paid employees about 8000 in California.
SumatraPDF has one part time programmer also in CA, striving to make ends meet.
Of course based in California has very little to do with it, other than the myriad of eastern SumatraPDF clones totally disregard American license restrictions.

For ePub
Team Calibre is much smaller, also open source, and one primary developer, however the user developers number manyfold and I suspect eastern programmers there are more likely to corroborate than compete.

It’s a simple & basic feature, for God’s sake… It won’t take much time to add it & it would make Sumatra a REAL decent viewer, which is not right now - Sorry for making you face reality.

Do more programming & less looking for excuses & seeking compliments. As if Calibre is not one person.