As you may know, I published my first book using Amazon KDP. While I learned a lot of new skills like typesetting, editing and more, I chose to use a writing and layout tool I was already familiar with – MS Word.
When you are creating a KDP manuscript you have to pay a lot of attention to trim sizes, margins, bleed, DPI, and cover dimensions. There isn’t much help if you’re using MS Office to build your manuscript. Amazon do provide some documentation but it is brief and not always up to date. When I started my second and third books I just wanted to start writing without worrying about sizes.
So I built Office2KDP, an open source Excel-based toolkit that helps authors and creators create KDP-ready templates using only Microsoft Office.
What Office2KDP Does
- Calculates trim size, margins, headers, footers, and gutters — with built-in presets
- Automatically generates a blank Word template using a VBA macro
- Calculates cover dimensions in inches, cm, mm, and pixels — with DPI control
- Exports to .DOCX format (with PowerPoint and Publisher support coming soon)
- Includes a complete Word checklist to help ensure KDP compliance
- Compatible with Office 2016 and newer
Download the Tool
You can download Office2KDP from the official GitHub repository.
How to Use It
- Open the Excel file and set your preferences on the Your Document tab
- Go to the output tab for the tool you want to use (Word, PDF, or Cover)
- Click the button to generate a formatted Word document
- Add your manuscript and upload to KDP with confidence
A Quick Note on Safety
Office2KDP is an Excel .xlsm file, which means it contains macros (VBA code) to power the automatic Word file generation. It also means you should be careful where you download it from.
Only download this tool from the official GitIHub repository. Never trust macro-enabled Excel files from unknown or unofficial sources.
Why Open Source?
Office2KDP is free to use and adapt non-commercially, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license (CC BY-NC 4.0).
I built Office2KDP to solve a personal publishing problem but I know I’m not the only one using Word or Excel to prepare print-ready books for KDP. By releasing it as an open-source project, I hope it will:
- Save other indie authors from having to figure it all out from scratch
- Make KDP publishing more accessible for non-designers and non-coders
- Encourage contributions from the community – whether that’s new features, localization, or bug fixes
If you find it useful, feel free to fork it, improve it, or even build your own tools on top of it — just credit the project and keep it non-commercial.
Why Excel?
You might be wondering: why Excel?
- Because I use it every day and know it inside out.
Building Office2KDP in Excel was the fastest, most practical way to get something useful into the hands of other authors. - Because you probably already have it.
If you’re working in Microsoft Word, there’s a good chance you have Excel too. No extra tools, apps, or downloads needed. - Because it’s built for this kind of thing.
The tool combines and extracts lots of numbers, and Excel formulas were made for exactly that. - Because it supports macros.
With a little bit of VBA, you can click a button and generate a complete Word document, fully formatted for KDP. - Because it’s a good neutral home for everything I plan to integrate.
While I could have built a smaller tool just for Word, Excel gives me room to support PowerPoint and Publisher too.
What’s Next for Office2KDP?
Office2KDP started with Word because it’s the most obvious starting point for KDP manuscripts. But it’s not stopping there. I am currently expanding the toolkit to support PowerPoint and Publisher, which are also included in Microsoft Office.
PowerPoint works surprisingly well for printable layouts and supports high-quality PDF export. That makes it a great choice for designing interiors or covers for journals, planners, and illustrated books.
Publisher is a full desktop publishing tool with margin, bleed, and layout features that rival InDesign in many use cases. It isn’t considered “professional software” but it has a lot going for it. It’s easier to learn and already familiar to many Office users. If you already have it installed as part of Office, why not use it?
Both exports will follow the same pattern as Word: pick your settings in the excel Excel, click a button, and get a ready-to-edit .pptx or .pubx file.
Since you would be exporting as a pdf file both of these Exports will support print-bleed, so they are a good option for books with lots of illustrations.
If there is another format you’d love to see supported, feel free to open an issue on GitHub or get in touch.
Hey Steve, did you use AI to build this?
That’s a fair question, especially in this day and age. No, I didn’t use AI to write any of the VBA code in Office2KDP.
However, I did ask ChatGPT to help me with the initial documentation in the Github Wiki for the project. I like code, but Github markdown gives me a headache so this was a nice way to create some guidelines and instructions based on my own work. I’ll update it as the project develops and before long I imagine most of the AI generated text will be replaced.