Decide Whether the New Textbook Edition Is Worth It — Free
Paste what actually changed between editions and what each one costs, and get cost per changed chapter instead of a guess.
The proof surface
Publishers market editions by page count. This card prices the change itself, so a reordered chapter list stops looking like new material.
Why the flat version breaks
Page-count comparison
A 640-page edition against a 618-page one looks like 22 pages of new material until the change list shows four rewritten chapters spread through the book.
Ignoring the errata sheet
An older edition with the publisher's errata page often carries the same corrections as a 'revised' printing at a quarter of the price.
Access-code bundling
Online codes expire and are sold as bundles; pricing them on their own line is the only way to see what the bundle actually costs.
How to work the edition-change card
Price, printed change count and, where you know it, how many chapters the lecturer actually teaches from.
Words like 'rewritten' or 'unchanged' label the change so the card can price it rather than guess.
The decisive number sits on the right rule: dollars for each chapter that genuinely changed.
Take the stamped figure to your lecturer or tutor and ask which of those changed chapters the assessment uses.
What the card replaces
| Question | Before | On the card |
|---|---|---|
| Is the new edition needed | ask the lecturer, guess the rest | cost per changed chapter, printed |
| Used or new | compare cover prices | used line shown against the same change count |
| Rental or buy | count weeks of use | rental price placed beside the per-chapter figure |
The card never claims a lecturer's requirement; it prices the difference you told it about, and leaves the syllabus question to your course handbook.
Run it on the samples, right here
FIRST-LOAD
Data note: Your edition notes stay in the browser tab; nothing is sent to a bookstore or a publisher and no account is created.
Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a index card with a stamped header
The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the ready-to-mail packet, and holds your drafts on this device — one free run, then $ 5 one-time for the layer that keeps filing.
The card and the per-chapter arithmetic are free. The paid layer keeps four editions side by side and prints the card for a book-buying decision.
Open the edition-change index card companionBoundary
This card prices changes you describe; it cannot know what your course requires. Reading lists, assessment text and lecturer instructions override any number here, and a cheaper edition is not always acceptable for an exam. Confirm with your department before buying, and treat second-hand sellers' descriptions as claims to check.
What this is built on
- Change counts and prices are the reader's own notes; no publisher claim is repeated as fact.
- Where a change list is unavailable, the card says so rather than assuming every page changed.
- Errata sheets and preprint corrections are treated as user-supplied evidence, not verified data.
Before: the reader assumed a new edition meant new material. After: they can see the new edition rewrote three of fourteen chapters and costs $32 per changed chapter.