We recommend building your book in Word for ease of formatting. You can write your book in Word or convert an existing source file to Word format (DOC / DOCX). For the best eBook presentation, refer to the following tips:

File Format: Save your content in DOC or DOCX format. Save your work periodically to avoid losing your changes as you go.

Tables: If your book requires tables, select "Insert Table" in Word.

Layout: You can use Word-default paragraph indentations, bold characters, italics and headings in your Kindle book. Avoid special fonts, headers, and footers, which do not translate into Kindle format.

Page Breaks: Insert a page break at the end of every chapter to keep the text from running together. In Word, click "Insert" at the top menu bar and select "Page Break."

Line Breaks: Don't hit enter at the end of a line. Word automatically wraps to the next line as you type. If you need to insert a line break in the middle of a paragraph or sentence, press Shift+Enter together so the spacing between sentences will stay the same.

Image Placement: Insert JPEG formatted images with center alignment. Don't copy and paste from another source.

In Word, select "Insert" > "Picture" > then locate and select the file. If your book has a lot of images, it can be viewed in color by readers using our free Kindle apps for PC, MAC, iPad, iPhone, and Android. Otherwise, images on Kindle are displayed in 16 shades of gray for optimal contrast and clarity.

Don't include your cover image in your manuscript file. When you publish or re-publish your book, we'll automatically add your cover image to the inside.

Spellcheck and Grammar: Use Word's built-in spellcheck and grammar tools, but proofread your file manually as well. The automated tools may not catch every error.

Front matter includes the beginning pages of a book, such as Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication, Preface, and Prologue. For a stylish and professional presentation, add a Title Page at minimum.

Title Page: Center the title page with the title on top and Author Name underneath, like the example below. Insert a page break.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer By Mark Twain -Insert Page Break Here-
To insert a page break in Word, click "Insert" at the top menu bar and select "Page Break."

Copyright Page: This page normally follows the Title Page. Insert a page break after the Copyright details.

Dedication: If you have a customized Dedication, it should follow the Copyright page. Be sure to insert a page break.

Preface: If you have a Preface, it should follow the Dedication. Be sure to insert a page break.

Prologue: If your book includes a Prologue, it should follow the Preface. Be sure to insert a page break.

Once you've created your front matter, you're ready to format the rest of your text. The indentations, text spacing, and separate paragraphs should have been included when you built your book in Word.

The remaining step is to insert a page break after the last sentence of each book chapter to keep them from running together. Depending on the number of chapters you have, this may be a time-consuming process but the effort is worth the improved reading experience.

During publishing, your book may be converted to support enhanced typesetting, a feature that standardizes displays and improves readability across Kindle devices and applications.

A hard return is anywhere you press the Enter or Return key while typing in your manuscript. Hard returns are invisible unless you choose to show all nonprinting characters. To show them, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+* (usually the number 8 on top row number keys) or for Macs, use Command+8. You'll see hard returns in your manuscript marked with the paragraph symbol (¶).

The placement of hard returns in your manuscript can affect the design of your book. Hard returns indicate where you want new paragraphs to start or line spaces added. You shouldn't use hard returns at the end of every line. Use hard returns to:

Tab spacing doesn't convert to Kindle. Instead, indent paragraphs by clicking in front of the line you want to indent. On the Page Layout tab in Word, click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher, and then click the "Indents and Spacing" tab. In the Special list under "Indentation", click "First line" and then in the "By" box. Set the amount of space that you want the first line to be indented.

The indentations will appear in the Kindle content only if they're present in the Word DOC. If there are no indentations in the DOC, you can set the indentation in the DOC file using the ruler and then save the file as HTML before uploading to KDP. If you've saved your content as HTML, you'll need to format the paragraphs using tags in order for the indentations to convert correctly.

We recommend an active Table of Contents in your book for ease of navigation. Since Kindle content is resizable, page numbering doesn't really apply.

On a PC, you can use Word's built-in Table of Contents tool (learn more).

On a Mac, you'll need to create a Table of Contents manually using the Hyperlink and Bookmark functions.

If you used unique font styles in your Word file and want to retain them, use a HTML source file along with the font file. For detailed guidance, see section 9.3.8 of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines.

Kindle eBooks are reflowable and can be viewed with different font sizes, so page numbers and page count don't apply. When submitting your book, remember that we don't allow content that disappoints our customers, including content that's too short.

See this Help page for more information about disappointing content.

We don't recommend inserting text boxes and shapes to create diagrams. If you want to include visuals like these, insert them as images. For detailed guidance, see section 9.4 of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines.

Drop caps are large capital letters at the beginning of a block of text with two or more lines of regular text. They are typically used for the first letter of the first sentence of a chapter. Here's an example:

 

Drop caps are supported, but they may not appear the way you want them to if uploaded directly from a Word document. To ensure the drop caps look as intended, you can format your manuscript in HTML. For more information on formatting drop caps, see section 9.3.6 of the Kindle Publishing Guidelines.

You can also use our manuscript and publishing tools to add elements like drop caps. Use Kindle Create to automatically transform a completed manuscript into a beautiful Kindle eBook. Or, if you're still working on your manuscript in Word, use Kindle Create Add-in for Microsoft Word (Beta) to apply book themes.

Back matter is additional information at the end of your book, such as Bibliographies, Appendices, Notes or Glossaries.

Back matter can be laid out in any order you choose, as long as you insert page breaks after each section. Indexes are not recommended.

Once you've inserted your page breaks and you're confident with the layout of your book, save your Word file to your Documents folder or Desktop in Web Page, Filtered (*HTM & *HTML) (for PC) or Web Page (.htm) (for Mac) format. This format is required to build a successful eBook.

When saving the Word file as HTML, all the images (if any) in the Word file will be extracted and stored in a separate folder. This folder will be saved in the same location where the HTML file is saved.

Once you're satisfied with the quality and presentation of your book, upload your file to your KDP Bookshelf and complete the publication process.

For information on timelines, including details on new publications and updates to published books, see our Help page.