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staciv69226972
staciv69226972
Known Participant
March 22, 2025
Question

Word 2019 doc to pdf messing up the margins (on a PC)

  • March 22, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 1077 views

I am trying to upload a manuscript with a lot of image that bleed to KDP and they will only take a pdf. I also have to have margins exact before they will accept it; however, every time I convert to pdf, it adds a white strip border down the entire side of the document.  I cannot find anything online that will help me fix this that actually matches Word 2019 or pdf's from 2024. I am using Adobe Pro as well. 

 

Thank you

 

Staci

2 replies

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
March 23, 2025

Thanks for the ping!

 

Not sure this is truly a KDP issue except that the result has to match KDP submission requirements. Export from Word is limited (compared to InDesign, my usual book design platform) and Word doesn't really understand the concept of bleed very well.

 

Some general guidelines, though —

  • It's easy to get tangled up in KDP's many guidelines and requirements, and error messages can be completely misleading. (There is, for example, a common error saying there is insufficient bleed that actually means you have live content elements too close to the margins!)
  • The document should be set up at the exact page size for the KDP print format — 6x9 inches, 8.5x11 inches, etc. The trim size. Don't adjust the page size to try to add "bleed" or "gutter" or if KDP gives confusing instructions along these lines. The document page size should always be the trim size.
  • Be sure to export using the Print function, with Adobe PDF selected as the printer. Don't use any inherent/menu items for "Save As PDF" or the like. You must use the real Adobe PDF export function to get a reliable result.
    • Be sure to uncheck "Rely on system fonts." (This antiquated setting shouldn't even be on the menu any more, and has to be set on every single new export!)

 

Unfortunately, I know nothing useful about exporting a document with bleeds from Word. The one and only setting I know of is what Microsoft calls the "gutter," an inside margin/bleed for binding purposes, and I am not sure how it interacts with either PDF export or KDP's demands. It's set in the Page Setup/Margins panel and seems to be a left or top only setting.

 

I'm... just not sure I'd try to use Word to do a layout this complex, for photo content at all or with page bleeds.

staciv69226972
staciv69226972Author
Known Participant
March 23, 2025

Thank you for taking the time to answer. My word document and pdf all looked fine...even with the bleed. And the proof was perfect. But unless I added the extra to the margins, KDP absolutely refuses to publish it as it is even though the proof was fine. And every time I add extra to the margins, the pdf won't print right. So now I'm trying to crop it now with Adobe Acrobat....but running into installation difficulties despite having a brand new laptop. So having a hard time here technically all around with Adobe. I spent hours of online research and not a single answer to this issue. So now  I'm downloading InDesign now to see if the entire book will copy and paste into there but I suspect I will have hair pulling formatting difficulties with that as well....so doesn't look like any good options that isn't going to be a huge time suck.

 

Thanks for trying to help. I can't believe we can land things on Mars but Adobe can't find a fix to this margin issue. 

 

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
March 23, 2025

Again, KDP errors are sometimes... whimsical and misdirected. Exactly what error did you get when you tried to upload the original version?

 

It's very unusual for a KDP upload to pass the proof and then generate errors later; you have to distinguish between stubborn, bot-driven rejection and rejections where a human is making a possibly erroneous judgment about something.

 

KDP is a huge PITA to deal with if you don't happen to 'thread the needle' with your submissions. But using Word for layout compounds the problem... despite its pretensions at the office level, it's just not a capable layout app.

 

And, ETA, this sounds like a variation of the error I mentioned: KDP insisting something is wrong with the bleed or margins when the problem is that someone or something is seeing live content too close to the allowed margins. (That is, having a piece of art or some text extending even a bit over these arbitrary margins will generate a "bleed size" error, which has nothing to do with the problem or solution.)

creative explorer
Community Expert
creative explorerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 23, 2025

@James Gifford—NitroPress here's a KDP question for you! 

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