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H
hapci534
Participant
February 26, 2025
Question

Cannot change "Print" to "Web" in Page Setup for existing book

  • February 26, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 188 views

I designed an image heavy 5.5 x 8.5 book, originally intended for print. Finally it became an interactive PDF. Cool. Now I'm thinking of repurposing this InDesign CS 5.5 file for Kindle. The file still shows "Print" intent in Page Setup (it didn't cause trouble for the interactive PDF...) and I cannot change "Print"to "Web" (the Kindle spec), it is greyed out.

So, I'm kinda lost as to why this would be greyed out, what to do, and should I even worry about reformatting the file for Kindle, or just hand the 5.5 x 8.5 book PDF file as is to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing?

1 reply

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
February 26, 2025

You don't have any easy path to a Kindle edition, and it's not made easier by having a very old edition of InDesign.

 

The only recommended path to Kindle is via EPUB output, preferably reflowable and not fixed-page (FXL). The export details have changed quit a bit since v5.5, a great deal just in the last year.

 

I am tempted to say that there's no good way to get your book from its present state to Kindle; KDP is not very good with fixed-page "picture" books at best as well as all details of conversion etc. If you're not prepared to rebuild the book using a more up to date process, you may as well explore Amazon/KDP's book-making tools, at least one of which supports picture pages and the like. PDF is one route into that workflow but it's not the best, by far, and it may take some work to get an acceptable result.

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
February 27, 2025

To add some clarity from another angle: books for print, and most PDF, and even interactive PDF can be fairly loosely constructed. What you see on the pages is what you will see in the output, even if what's underneath is kind of messy and disorganized, or even outright hacks.

 

Books for e-book publication are the inverse: they have to be structurally and technically "perfect," and what you see on the pages is secondary to them having meticulous layout, construction, object placement and linking, and so forth. Unless they are, the actual conversion process and workflow and file types and destination are almost moot — it just won't work well in any case.

 

So don't be surprised if "repurposing" to Kindle means more or less starting over from scratch, and for a picture book, InDesign, especially your very old version, may not be the right tool/platform to get it there.

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