This is a quick blog post explaining how to convert MS Word to PDF for Amazon KDP IngramSpark Lulu and Draft2Digital for Free.
For those who are tech-savvy and budget-conscious, self-publishing can be an excellent alternative to paying a publisher several hundred pounds. If you’ve had your manuscript thoroughly reviewed – by friends, family, and editors – you might be ready to take the leap into self-publishing and save money in the process. Platforms like Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital or Lulu make it simple and affordable to publish your book while keeping creative and financial control.
How to convert MS Word to PDF for Amazon KDP IngramSpark Lulu and Draft2Digital for Free
I recently wrote a self-improvement book using Microsoft Word and was hoping that simply saving the document as a PDF from Microsoft Word via “File > Save-As” would do the trick for uploading a compliant PDF to Amazon KDP, Ingram Spark, Lulu and Draft2Digital. However, I was plagued with warnings about transparency in the document (I have a single image in there), and even the document resolution being too high.
I tried a different approach using “File > Print” and then selecting “Microsoft Print to PDF”, but that method was fraught with the same issues. It also made the document formatting look slightly…..weird.
The advice from the self-publishing book platforms and aggregators was to use Adobe Acrobat to “flatten” the PDF document, making it ready for upload. But I didn’t have a license and was reluctant to pay just to generate a single PDF!
So I did some research and stumbled upon this little beauty….and it’s free too. PDF24 Tools has a range of PDF tools such as compressing PDF files, flattening PDF files and dozens more. So here’s how I did it:
- Download the tool from here. That way, you’re not uploading your life’s work to a web server you know nothing about (you can convert it on your local computer instead of “in the cloud”)!
- We first need to create a “Printing Profile” that we can reuse for all our books/revisions. Launch PDF24 and find the button towards the bottom right called “Manage output profiles”. Open it.
- Configure profile settings as follows:
- Under General:
- Quality of PDF = High Quality (any higher and the resolution will be too high)
- PDF Standard = PDF/A-1
- Auto rotate pages = None
- Color model = CMYK
- Color Conversion = CMYK
- Optimize for web = Unchecked
- Preserve Annotations = Unchecked
- Under Info:
- Use Information = Unchecked
- Under Security:
- Use security settings = Unchecked
- Leave resolution as default (it should be 600 DPI)
- Compression:
- JPEG Quality = High
- Color image compression = Automatic
- Gray image compression = Automatic
- Monochrome image compression = Automatic
- Under Watermark:
- Use watermark = Unchecked
- Under Page Numbers
- Use page numbers = Unchecked
- Under Digital Paper
- Use digital paper = Unchecked
- Under Overlay
- Use overlay = Unchecked
- Leave attachment as default (no attachment)
- Under Signature:
- Use signature = Unchecked
- Under Crop:
- Use crop = Unchecked
- Under PDF-A:
- Profile = ISO coated v2
- Under General:
- At the bottom, give your profile a name such as “Book PDF” and click “Save”. The profile has now been created. Close the window.
- Launch the Toolbox again and find “Open PDF24 Creator” towards the bottom-left:
- Find your Microsoft Word document and drag it onto the right-hand window.
- Click File > Save and select the profile you just created. Done!
You have now converted a Microsoft Word document into a compliant PDF file for upload to multiple book self-publishing websites such as Amazon KDP, Ingram Spark, Lulu, and Draft2Digital for Free.
I hope this helped to save you a few hours and a few pennies! If it did, please give me a follow on X/Twitter here and support my book launch! If it didn’t, please still give me a follow on X/Twitter here and support my book launch! 🙂