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Kindle Create: what it does well, and where it stops

Free, and right for a Kindle ebook sold only on Amazon. Its paperbacks fix your font and margins, and its file is meant for KDP alone. Where the line falls.

The Nueel team8 min read

Kindle Create is Amazon’s free formatting app for Windows and Mac. If you are publishing one text-driven ebook, on Amazon, and nowhere else, it is very often the right tool, and nothing on this page should talk you out of it.

It is strongest exactly where the author’s typography matters least. On a Kindle the reader chooses the typeface, the size and the line spacing, so a tool that gives you little say over those things gives up almost nothing. In print, where every one of those choices is yours and is fixed in ink, Kindle Create makes them for you. And everything it produces is meant for one store.

What it is, as Amazon describes it

Kindle Create runs on Windows 10 or later and macOS 10.15 or later (macOS 11 on Apple silicon). It imports DOC, DOCX and PDF files and makes three kinds of book:

  • Reflowable, from a Word file: the ordinary novel, memoir or essay collection, where text reflows to fit the screen. The same project can also be published as a paperback.
  • Print Replica, from a PDF: a fixed copy of the print pages, for textbooks and the like, with optional audio, video and hyperlinks that work only on some devices.
  • Comics and illustrated kids’ books, from a PDF or a set of JPEGs, with Guided View panels. Kindle Create has no text tools for these; lettering goes into the artwork before import.

For a reflowable book the workflow is short. Import the Word file; Kindle Create proposes chapter titles and builds the table of contents from them; you mark up the title page, the chapter openings and any drop caps; you pick one of four themes (Modern is the default, and themes “cannot be edited by the user”); and you preview the result on simulated tablets, phones and e-readers. Then you export, and you get two files:

  • a .kcb project file, the one you open again to make changes;
  • a .kpf file (Kindle Package Format), the one you upload to KDP.

KDP calls a KPF “a go-to method for avoiding any formatting issues”, and it is easy to see why. Amazon wrote both ends of the pipe. A file from Kindle Create is, by construction, a file Kindle’s converter knows how to read.

Where it is the right answer

Picture the plan it suits: a novel, mostly prose, no notes, a handful of images at most, enrolled in KDP Select so it can be read in Kindle Unlimited. Select already commits the ebook to Amazon: during each 90-day term you cannot sell it in digital form anywhere else. For that book, the question “can this file go to Kobo?” has no practical weight. The only store that matters reads KPF natively.

Kindle Create also costs nothing, asks for no account beyond the KDP one you already have, and leaves you with an ebook whose typography the reader controls. A reader who sets your book in Bookerly at size 6 is looking at their own choices, whichever tool you formatted it in. The differences between tools show up in the chapter openings, the front matter and the ornaments, and Kindle Create’s themes handle those respectably.

If that is your book, use it. The rest of this page is about the four places where it stops.

The paperback is Amazon’s typography, not yours

Kindle Create can turn the same project into a paperback at any KDP trim size. Amazon’s help page is candid about the terms:

  • “You won’t be able to customize the margins and font.” Margins are calculated to meet KDP’s specifications.
  • “Today, you can’t change the font size and line spacing with Kindle Create.” KDP’s suggestion, if you need to, is to format the book in Microsoft Word instead.
  • Tables, footnotes and endnotes are not supported in the paperback.
  • Images cannot bleed, and one that does not fit on a page leaves blank space at the bottom of it.
  • You cannot preview the paperback in Kindle Create itself. You export, upload the KPF to KDP, choose the trim, and look at it in KDP’s Print Previewer.

Amazon’s own feature chart for Kindle Create lists preparing “a text-heavy eBook and paperback from the same manuscript” as a pre-release feature.

None of this is a defect for the book Amazon designed it around. It is a defect if you have opinions about your page. Suppose the proof arrives and the text feels cramped: in a typesetting tool you would open the leading by half a point, or drop the type from 11.5 to 11 to pull a 340-page book back under 320. In Kindle Create neither control exists. The page you get is the page Amazon’s defaults give a 6 × 9 book, and every author who uses it at that trim gets a similar one.

That matters more in print than anywhere else, because print is the format where the reader cannot fix it. The details a reader notices on paper (the measure, the inside margin, the running heads, how a page ends) are covered in formatting a book for KDP.

Hardcover is less clear-cut. KDP’s hardcover formatting page offers Kindle Create as an option for the interior, while Kindle Create’s own help pages describe only ebooks and paperbacks. KDP’s hardcover range is 75 to 550 pages, on five trim sizes, so if you go this way, check the interior in the previewer at the hardcover trim before you order a proof.

The file is for KDP

Nothing outside Amazon opens a KPF file. Apple Books wants an EPUB that passes EPUBCheck. IngramSpark wants an EPUB 3 for the ebook and a single PDF with every font embedded for print. Kobo takes EPUB too. None of them takes KPF. (Why the stores settled on EPUB is in EPUB, MOBI, and the formats bookstores actually want.)

There is a wrinkle most reviews miss: Kindle Create can now export an EPUB for reflowable books. So the file is not sealed shut. But Amazon’s own feature chart lists “publishing outside of Kindle” under unsupported, and its help page warns that the EPUB drops Kindle features such as drop caps and chapter-start imagery. Treat that EPUB as a starting point you will have to check, not as the edition you ship to Apple. Run it through EPUBCheck, open it in Apple Books and Kobo’s apps, and expect to fix things. Testing an ebook has the procedure, and our EPUB accessibility checker reads the file in your browser.

For print outside Amazon there is no route at all: Kindle Create does not write a PDF, so an IngramSpark paperback, a hardcover with a dust jacket, or a run from a local printer means typesetting the book again elsewhere.

This is the decision to make before you start, not after. A KDP Select term lasts 90 days. On day 91, if you decide to go wide, the book you formatted is the one asset you cannot take with you.

Revisions live in a folder on your computer

A formatted book is not finished once. A reader emails a typo in March; book two comes out and every earlier book needs a new “Also by” page; the price changes and the copyright page has to say so.

In Kindle Create each of those means opening the .kcb project, making the change, exporting a new KPF and uploading it again. That works, with one condition Amazon states plainly: “Amazon does not keep copies of your Kindle Create file.” The KPF you uploaded cannot be turned back into an editable project. Lose the folder with the .kcb in it, through a dead laptop or a cleaned-up Downloads folder, and the next correction starts from your Word manuscript, with the styling done again.

There is a quieter version of the same problem. Edits made inside Kindle Create stay inside Kindle Create; they do not flow back to Word. Authors who fix typos in both places, or only in one, end up with two manuscripts that disagree. Pick one master and keep to it.

What else is out there

If Kindle Create’s limits are the reason you are reading this, the alternatives sort themselves by what you are missing. The full ranking, with our reasoning, is in the best book formatting software; in brief:

Tool Price Runs on Writes
Kindle Create Free Windows, Mac KPF for KDP; EPUB (reflowable only)
Reedsy Studio Free Browser Print PDF, EPUB
Atticus $147 once Browser, any OS Print PDF, EPUB, DOCX
Vellum $249.99 once ($199.99 ebooks only) Mac only Print PDF, EPUB
Nueel $139 once Browser, any OS, offline Print PDF, EPUB, Word

Vellum and Atticus prices as their sites last published them when we checked.

Reedsy Studio is the closest like-for-like swap: also free, also little typographic control, but it writes a PDF and an EPUB you can take anywhere (our look at it). Atticus and Vellum give you real control over the page; the choice between them is mostly made by whether you own a Mac, which is the subject of Atticus or Vellum.

Nueel is ours, so weigh this as a pitch. It runs in the browser, imports the Word file, sets the whole book from one design, and writes a print PDF and an EPUB checked against 11 store profiles (KDP, IngramSpark and Apple Books among them) before the file is written. The free preview typesets your first chapter without an account, and the file never leaves your browser.

The short version

  • One ebook, Amazon only, mostly prose, probably in KDP Select: Kindle Create. It is free, the file is the one KDP likes best, and the reader controls the type anyway.
  • A paperback you are happy to leave to Amazon’s defaults: Kindle Create will do it. Order a proof before you publish, because you cannot change what you see.
  • Notes, tables, bleed images, or a font you chose: not Kindle Create.
  • Apple Books, Kobo or IngramSpark, now or later: produce the master files in a tool that writes a standard EPUB and PDF, and upload those to KDP too. KDP accepts both.

Two questions settle it: will the book ever need to be somewhere Amazon is not, and will it need to look like something Amazon did not decide? If both answers are no, the free tool is the right one, and the money is better spent on the cover.

Sources

Common questions

Is Kindle Create good enough for a Kindle ebook?
For a text-driven book sold only on Amazon, usually yes. It imports a Word file, finds the chapters, applies one of four themes and writes a KPF file that KDP calls a go-to method for avoiding formatting issues. On a Kindle the reader picks the typeface and size anyway, so the typographic control Kindle Create lacks matters least in exactly this format.
Can Kindle Create make a paperback?
Yes, from the same manuscript as the ebook, at any KDP trim size. The limits are real: you cannot choose the font, the font size, the line spacing or the margins; tables, footnotes and endnotes are not supported; images cannot bleed. Amazon's own feature chart lists preparing an ebook and paperback from one manuscript as a pre-release feature.
Can I use a Kindle Create file outside Amazon?
The KPF file, no: it is a package for KDP and nothing else reads it. Kindle Create can also export an EPUB for reflowable books, but Amazon lists publishing outside of Kindle as unsupported, and the EPUB loses features such as drop caps and chapter-start images. For Apple Books, Kobo or IngramSpark, plan on producing the files in another tool.
Does Kindle Create work for hardcovers?
KDP's hardcover formatting page suggests Kindle Create as an option for the interior, but Kindle Create's own help describes only ebooks and paperbacks. A hardcover also has different trim sizes and a 75 to 550 page range, so check the interior in KDP's previewer at the hardcover trim before ordering a proof.
What happens if I lose my Kindle Create project?
You lose the editable book. Amazon says it does not keep copies of your Kindle Create file, and the KPF you uploaded cannot be reopened for editing. Back up the folder that holds the KCB project file, or keep your Word manuscript as the master and accept that styling done in Kindle Create will have to be redone.

Nueel is a web app that turns a finished manuscript into a typeset book, in your browser: import your Word file, choose a design, export a print-ready PDF and an EPUB. See how it works.