Kindle Create Tutorial

In this tutorial, you'll use Kindle Create to prepare the interior of a sample book, Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. You'll start with an unformatted manuscript and finish with a file that's ready to be uploaded to KDP. We've provided starting materials and will walk you through each step.

By the end of the tutorial, you'll understand what you can do with Kindle Create and how to use it to prepare your own books.

Download Kindle Create

If you haven't done so, download Kindle Create and install the tool.

Download sample files

Here's an unformatted Microsoft Word version of Pride and Prejudice and an image you'll insert in step 8. Download and save these files on your computer.

Import unformatted file into Kindle Create

To import the sample manuscript file, start Kindle Create and click Create New.

Find the file of Pride and Prejudice on your computer and open it. After Kindle Create imports the file, it will automatically find and format the chapter titles.

list of detected chapter titles in Kindle Create

list of detected chapter titles in Kindle Create

Make sure the chapters Kindle Create found are correct. When you're done, click Accept Selected. This formats your chapter titles and adds them to the Kindle TOC in the Body section. Kindle Create displays your book in three sections: Front Matter, Body, and Back Matter. You can split, merge, or rearrange chapters as needed. Next, save your file. This is a work file (in KCB format) you can use to update your book later. Learn more about creating projects and tables of contents.

Add front matter pages

Kindle Create allows you to easily add front matter pages like title page, copyright, dedication, and more in a few clicks. For example, to add a title page:

Click the + sign next to the Front matter section and select Title Page.
Fill in the available fields like Title, Subtitle, and add a publisher image (optional).
Click Create Page and Kindle Create will generate a preformatted title page.

Add table of contents page (optional)

To add a table of contents (TOC) page, click your first chapter in the Contents pane, click Insert, and choose Table of Contents. A list of detected chapter titles will appear.

list of chapter titles for table of contents in Kindle Create

list of chapter titles for table of contents in Kindle Create

If everything looks the way you want it to, click OK. The TOC page will be added to your book's front matter. The TOC page is automatically updated as you add or remove chapters. When you change your chapter titles, the TOC updates automatically to match the new text.

Style chapter title pages

When you accept the chapter title pages Kindle Create detects, the tool automatically styles the chapter titles. To apply drop caps and add spacing between the chapter title and first paragraph:

Click next to the first word of your chapter's body text.
Go to the Text Properties pane.
Click the Chapter First Paragraph button.

Here's what it looks like before and after:

You can also format other text like indents, spacing, font face, and size. You can also add a separator between sections of a chapter. Here's what a separator looks like in Pride and Prejudice:

page with separator applied

Experiment with the different elements and formatting options in the Text Properties pane. When you style the chapters of your own book, you need to repeat these steps for each chapter. Learn more about formatting text.

Choose a theme

Give your book the right look and feel by applying a theme that automatically updates the layout and font.

The Modern theme is the default. To change it, click the Theme button in the upper right-hand corner of Kindle Create. You have four options: Modern, Classic, Cosmos, and Amour. Here's what they look like when applied to Pride and Prejudice:

Insert an image

To insert the sample image into Pride and Prejudice:

Right-click where you want to insert the image.
Click Insert Image in the menu that appears.
Find the sample image file on your computer and open it. This inserts the image into your book.

After you insert the image, you can change its size and position. For example, to put the image on the left margin and have the text wrap around it, go to the Image Properties pane and click the left position icon:

Image inserted in Kindle Create

If it's a small image like the one in our example, it will become blurry if you increase the size too much. Play with the options to see what looks best. Learn more about inserting images.

Insert hyperlinks

With Kindle Create, you can insert hyperlinks to webpages. A common reason for inserting hyperlinks is to add external references such as wiki pages or blogs.

For example, if you want to add a hyperlink to a word in chapter 1:

Open Chapter 1 and highlight the word
Right-click the word and then click Insert hyperlink in the menu that appears
Enter a URL and click Insert hyperlink

Learn more about inserting, editing, and removing hyperlinks.

Add back matter pages

Kindle Create allows you to easily add back matter such as “about the author,” or “more books by this author” in a few clicks. For example, to add a “Books by author” page:

Click the + sign next to the Backmatter section and select Books by Author
For every book you want to add, fill in the available fields like Book Title, Amazon link and (optional) Description for each book. You control the number of books you can add.
Click Create Page. Kindle Create will now generate a preformatted page with book names and their link to find them on the Amazon store.

Prepare your book for print

Kindle Create helps you to take the same project file you used for your eBook and publish it as a print version on KDP. It automatically handles margins based on the trim size you choose on KDP, and limits widows and orphans for a professional print. The page numbering of your book begins with the body, and front matter gets roman numerals as page numbers.

You can control how the headers and footers of your print book appear by specifying the style you want. Click the Print Settings button in the top-right corner of Kindle Create. This opens a window with several options to change the alignment and position of the author name, book title, and page numbers.

Learn more about print features in Kindle Create.

Preview and export file

After you finish formatting your book, you can preview it in Kindle Create to see what it would like look on a tablets, E-readers, and phones.

To preview your book, click the Preview button in the upper right-hand corner of Kindle Create. Here's a preview of our Pride and Prejudice file:

Preview of book in Kindle Create

When you're happy with your book, then you're ready to export the file. To export Pride and Prejudice, you would click the Generate button in the upper right-hand corner of Kindle Create. This creates a publishable file (in KPF format) that can be uploaded to KDP.

If you're also publishing your book in print, you should use the KDP Print Previewer after uploading your file to KDP. Learn more about previewing and publishing books prepared with Kindle Create.

Paths to Getting Your Content on Kindle

Kindle Direct Publishing

Self-publishers can convert books into electronic format using Amazon's self-publishing tools and sell them on Amazon Kindle with Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). KDP is a fast, easy selfpublishing system for Amazon Kindle. Upload your content, enter sales copy and pricing information, and publish in minutes. Learn more or sign up.

Kindle Create

Use Kindle Create (PC or Mac) to transform your completed manuscript into a beautiful Kindle eBook. You can make three types of eBooks with Kindle Create:

If you have a text-heavy book, your DOC(X) file is converted into a "reflowable" eBook. Reflowable eBooks allow the reader to resize text and are available on all Kindle devices and free Kindle reading applications. Reflowable books can be read using a screen reader or refreshable braille display when supported by the device or reading application.
If you have a comic book or graphic novel, your PDF is converted into a comic eBook. Comic eBooks include Guided View, which animates panel-to-panel movement with each swipe to give a clear indication of how the story progresses across each page. Comic eBooks do not currently provide support for reading with a screen reader.
If you have a book with lots of images and complex formatting, your PDF is converted into a Print Replica eBook. Print Replica eBooks maintain the look of their print editions and offer many of the advantages of standard Kindle eBooks, but they do not allow the reader to resize text and are only available on certain devices. They are also not accessible to readers using screen readers or refreshable braille displays.

Kindle Create works with DOC and DOCX files exported from any source, including Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, Google Docs, and other applications. It also supports importing PDF files for creating interactive textbooks with embedded audio and video.

Note: We accept PDF files, but they can contain embedded formatting and/or images that don't convert well to eBooks. If you'd like to upload a PDF file for your book, preview it before you publish. If you see any issues or if your book doesn't look the way you want it to, you can use Kindle Create to convert PDFs that contain rich graphics like charts, graphs, and equations.

Kindle Create supports eBooks in Dutch, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Malayalam, Marathi, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tamil. Kindle Create is available for PC (Windows 7 or later) and Mac OS (10.9 or later). Download the most recent version of Kindle Create.

Creating Kindle Books In-House Using Kindle Publisher Tools

Publishers can create Kindle books in-house from HTML, XHTML, and EPUB files by using the Kindle Publisher tools. Amazon officially supports these tools to create books for publishing on Kindle. Files created with third-party software may not work properly on current or future Kindle devices and applications.

Kindle Previewer

Kindle Previewer is a tool that imitates how books display on Kindle devices and applications. Kindle Previewer makes it easy to preview the layout of a book and make sure its content displays properly for different screen sizes, display orientations, and font sizes.

Kindle Previewer 3 supports previewing your book with the latest typographic and layout improvements that come with Enhanced Typesetting, and provides a better reflection of how your book is delivered to customers' devices. You can get a bird's-eye view of your book to quickly validate the overall layout, and selectively preview key aspects such as images, tables, drop caps, links, and lists.

Kindle Previewer is available for Windows and Mac OS X. Download the most recent version of Kindle Previewer.

Note: Use EPUB, DOCX, or KPF files for publishing reflowable content. MOBI is not recommended for reflowable content. MOBI is no longer support for reflowable content. Kindle Previewer is the best way to validate your content before publishing. We no longer recommend sideloading eBooks to devices for testing. Sideloading does not provide an accurate preview of Enhanced Typesetting features.

Kindle Comic Creator

Kindle Comic Creator is a free tool for authors and publishers to turn graphic novels, comics, and manga into Kindle books. Kindle Comic Creator makes it easy to import original artwork, optimize the experience of readers, and preview how a book will look on Kindle devices.

Kindle Comic Creator accepts single or multi-page source files in PDF, JPG/JPEG, TIF/TIFF, PPM, or PNG formats, so authors are free to create artwork using their preferred design tools. More detailed guidance for graphic novels/manga/comics can be found in section 11.

Kindle Comic Creator is available for Windows and Mac OS X. Download the most recent version of Kindle Comic Creator.

Kindle Kids' Book Creator

Kindle Kids' Book Creator is a free tool that authors and publishers can use to turn illustrated kids' books into Kindle books. This tool makes it easy to import original artwork, optimize the experience of readers, and preview how a book will look on Kindle devices and applications.

Kindle Kids' Book Creator accepts source files in JPG/JPEG, TIF/TIFF, PNG, and PPM formats, so authors are free to create artwork using their preferred design tools. More detailed guidance for children's books can be found in section 10.

Kindle Kids' Book is available for Windows and Mac OS X. Download the most recent version of Kindle Kids' Book Creator.

Cover Creator

You can use our free Cover Creator tool to design a cover for your eBook or paperback. The tool allows you to customize your cover with a variety of layouts and fonts. Cover Creator uses the book details you enter during title setup and adds your book's ISBN to the barcode area of the back cover. Many Cover Creator templates allow you to choose an image from our image gallery or upload your own image. The tool accepts JPG, PNG and TIF/TIFF files. For more information, visit Cover Creator.

Note: Cover Creator isn't supported on kdp.amazon.co.jp.

Third-Party Conversion Services

Publishers have the option to outsource conversion of titles from a variety of file formats to eBook formats. Conversion houses offer publishers solutions and services that include taking a variety of input formats and creating eBook or print-ready output. The typical input formats are:

Word (DOC, DOCX), Rich Text Format (RTF), Text (TXT)
PDF
Scan of print book
FrameMaker, InDesign, PageMaker, QuarkXPress
XML (such as DocBook, etc.)
HTML, XHTML
EPUB (also known as IDPF or OEB)

As you explore conversion house options, Amazon recommends that you confirm which source format(s) the conversion house requires to convert files for use on Kindle.

The preferred outputs from conversion houses to be processed by Amazon are:

Books in EPUB format
Metadata in ONIX format (XML)

Use Kindle Previewer validate EPUB file and run checks for common errors. Any errors or warnings will prevent the titles from becoming available. These errors must be fixed in the EPUB file before the title is published in the Kindle store. Titles in EPUB format must abide by these publishing guidelines.

Conversion houses can be of service in helping publishers supply eBook retailers with metadata.

Markdown Authoring Tools

For blind authors, using word processors like Microsoft Word or developer tools to create HTML or EPUB documents can be cumbersome and frustrating. Markdown languages, such as CommonMark, can provide a simpler means of creating and reviewing a manuscript. Markdown languages support all critical structural elements and can be easily converted to DOC(x) formats prior to uploading your manuscript to Kindle. Some markdown authoring tools include:

PaDOC. A cross-platform command-line tool that converts among numerous document formats including Markdown (MD) and Microsoft Word (DOCX).
Writage. A GUI version in the form of a plug-in for Microsoft Word on Windows.

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