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Comment by jterrace | Hacker News Reader

The HTML format does generate multiple pages for different sections and chapters, completely configurable. The format above is the singlehtml format where everything is on one page. I'd much rather have a link to a specific anchor tag on a page that goes directly to where I want than a citation to a page number on a 200 page document.

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"As show on pages 105-107" looks much better than "As shown in sections 4.5.4, 5.1 and 5.1.2". Really. You don't have the first option with HTML and/or sphinx. Oh, and can I have some bold italic text please?

You can link to a section with a URL. No "section xyz" or "page n" needed.

Yes, you can place a link. But the link, unlike the page range, points only to the place, not to the scope.

Why can't you link to divs on a page? When I'm given a page range, I don't typically first go to some arbitrary page in the middle of a range.

But the rules of citation prescribe that you give a section or page number. Giving a URL is a neat technical solution, but it's not a proper citation.

You can cite a URL.

You can if you must but you know what I mean. Typically you cite a peer reviewed work and reference it in the bibliography with author, year, publisher, etc.

reference it in the bibliography with author, year, publisher

Which is more than a little quaint, in 2012.

Not really. These are useful bits of bibliographic information, which can give you an idea of a source without having to consult it. And the kind of publisher gives an indication of reliability ranging from peer reviewed to self-published. Including an URL as well, when applicable, is of course very useful (given that it's a stable one).

Sure, but that's what the PDF format exists for.

Actually, I despise page number references because often popular resources get republished (because no one has the book from the 70s anymore), changing the page numbers, whereas a section title / number is much likelier to remain correct, and an URL to a paragraph can always be updated.

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