Re: Chapter first page always recto?

Subject: Re: Chapter first page always recto?
From: Richard Hamilton <dick -at- rlhamilton -dot- net>
To: TECHWR-L Writing <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:24:45 -0800

Yes and no.

Numbers may not be needed for some references, but when you're referring to a table with a very long heading that's close to the reference, I'd much rather have 'see Table 4.3' than 'see the table titled "The lifecycle of the common fruit fly in southern Indonesia during monsoon season"'

Also, although we don't use them in print, we have started using numbered sections (chapnum.sect1.sect2...) in our ebooks.

Our back-of-the-book indexes in ebooks have hot links from the index to the target location, and we need link text for each reference. Our default style sheets used the nearest section title, but when you have a term that has many references, the index line would get really unwieldy. By using numbered sections, the link text is the nearest section number (or chapter head, if the occurrence happens before the first heading). The result looks like:

fruit flys, 4.5, 4.8, 8.3
instead of
fruit flys, Indonesian fruit flys, Mediterranean insect pests, Identifying insect pests from southeast Asia

This method also make ranges much easier to generate and see.

So, paradoxically, even though they are not necessary for normal reading, section numbers are useful in this situation.

Numbered chapters, figures, and tables are also useful in textbooks. A class may have some students reading print and others reading the ebook. Chapter numbers give teachers an easy way to identify reading assignments.

Richard
-------
XML Press
XML for Technical Communicators
http://xmlpress.net
hamilton -at- xmlpress -dot- net



On Nov 12, 2015, at 14:45, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> wrote:

> Chapter numbers, figure numbers, and table numbers were essential in
> the lead-type era, when you never knew which page something would end
> up on, and tables and figures were often in separate ligatures.
>
> Now that we have desktop publishing programs that can automatically
> generate "see <heading> on page <number>," to me they're just antique
> clutter.
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 2:37 PM, Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net> wrote:
>> ... I also think it's important to
>> retain chapter numbers, figure numbers, table numbers, and so on.
>> Navigation aids are a good thing.
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References:
Re: Re: Chapter first page always recto?: From: Nancy Allison
Re: Re: Chapter first page always recto?: From: Robert Lauriston

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