Word to KDP: the settings that prevent the classic Word rejections

Setting 1: Page size — kill the Letter default

Layout → Size → More Paper Sizes, and type your trim size exactly (6″ × 9″, or your chosen trim). For a bleed book, type the bleed size instead: width + 0.125″, height + 0.25″. Do this before you format — changing page size afterward repaginates everything, and the file Word exports is always the size in this dialog, whatever the text thinks. Letter-size documents uploaded as book interiors are the single most common page-size rejection we see.

Setting 2: Mirrored margins + a real gutter

Layout → Margins → Custom Margins, then:

• Multiple pages: Mirror margins. Books have inside and outside edges, not left and right. Mirroring is what makes the gutter land on the binding side of every page.
• Gutter: set it from your page count — KDP's minimum inside margin runs from 0.375″ (24–150 pages) up to 0.875″ (701–828 pages). The full table is in our margin guide. Inside margin = gutter in Word's model; set the inside value to at least the table figure.
• Top, bottom, outside: at least 0.25″ with no bleed, 0.375″ with bleed — and more is kinder to readers. (Publishing for IngramSpark instead? Their floor is 0.5″ on every side.)

Setting 3: The export that embeds fonts

1. File → Save As → PDF (or Export → Create PDF/XPS).
2. Choose “Standard (publishing online and printing)” — never “Minimum size,” which downsamples images toward the 300 DPI error.
3. Click Options and check “PDF/A compliant” (labeled ISO 19005-1). PDF/A requires embedded fonts — this one checkbox is the difference between passing and the fonts-not-embedded rejection. In Options you can also confirm “Page range: All.”

Also before exporting: File → Options → Save → “Embed fonts in the file” protects the .docx itself when you send it to an editor — and a font whose license forbids embedding will warn you here, at your desk, instead of at KDP's.

Word-specific traps

• Section breaks change page setup. Different sections can carry different sizes/margins — a stray section break from a chapter template can make page 112 a different size from page 1. KDP reads mixed page sizes as a mismatch.
• Tracked changes and comments must be accepted/removed; Word's PDF options can include markup in some versions (“Document showing markup”). Export the clean document.
• Headers that wander. “Different first page” and “different odd and even” are fine and normal — but a header sitting inside the top margin's safe area is a margin flag.
• The cover is not a Word job. Word can't build a wraparound cover to KDP geometry reliably (no bleed control, no spine math). Interior in Word, cover in Canva/InDesign/a template — or our calculator plus a cover tool.

Verify the exported file

1. Page size: Acrobat > File > Properties > Description — every page at your trim (or bleed) size, in points = inches × 72.
2. Fonts: Properties > Fonts — every font “Embedded” or “Embedded Subset.” Any font without it is your rejection, found early.
3. Spot-check the gutter on a middle spread in the PDF: text shouldn't crowd the binding edge. Word's preview lies less than Word's editor, and the PDF is what KDP judges.

The honest limit

Word is a writing tool that exports PDFs, not a layout program. Long books with images, tables, or bleed will fight you — image anchoring and full-bleed pages are where Word books most often break. For a text novel or memoir, the settings above are genuinely sufficient; KDP's own templates start in Word. For image-heavy books, do the writing in Word and the layout in something built for pages — or have the files checked before you upload, which is cheaper than a week of rejection ping-pong.

More from the Help Library

• The KDP & IngramSpark Help Library — all guides & tools
• Canva → KDP export settings
• InDesign → KDP export settings
• Apple Pages → KDP export settings
• Fonts not embedded — check and fix
• The free rejection check — all 13 checks at once