Using Pages to Publish to KDP/Amazon

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Level 1

24 points

Using Pages to Publish to KDP/Amazon

I publish both fiction and non-fiction books. Most of my books include graphics of various types. I love using Pages for writing, but for some reason Pages does not seem to be very compatible with KDP/Kindle. I have found numerous explanations for making conversions, but they are fairly complicated and often fall short of what I need. (ie. the conversions usually don't work and require tons of tweaking to make them look okay) So I'm wondering:

Why does Amazon/KDP utilize so many formats for publishing, but not Pages?
Is there ever going to be a version of Pages that will work seamlessly to publish books (both eBooks and paperbacks) on Amazon? (without making conversions to other formats)

MacBook Air (2020 or later)

Posted on Sep 1, 2021 1:46 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Community+ 2024

Level 10

116,075 points

Sep 2, 2021 8:33 AM in response to trailsnet

Apple is focused on making EPUB generated by Pages work correctly with Apple Books. It is out of scope and engineering resources to make Pages generate Kindle compatible EPUB when Amazon has their own proprietary Kindle generation software that expects MS Word or PDF as input sources.

There are third-party products (e.g. Vellum) that can, starting with an MS Word document, produce Apple Books, Kindle books, and other EPUB in one production run. That software is free, but there is a one-time charge for unlimited future book generation.

Otherwise, Tom Gewecke's reply.

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Answer 2

trailsnet Author

Level 1

24 points

Sep 2, 2021 9:16 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks VikingOSX, for that helpful reply and the Vellum suggestion and link. I get what you're saying, but it seems like a step backward. I've been a huge Apple fan and user since just about day one. I remember back in the bad old days when the majority of software wouldn't work with Apple, but eventually that changed and benefitted everyone. Now, when it comes to Pages and the publishing world, they've gone back to that old mentality of not playing well with other platforms. As with all Apple products, Pages is an incredible product, but having to convert Pages output to Word in order to publish it on most platforms (including Vellum) is counter-productive. For the types of books I publish, I lose a lot of functionality when I make that conversion. Sorry for the rant, but I had hoped Apple had learned to always try and be user-friendly with all of their products.

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,084 points

Sep 2, 2021 10:53 AM in response to trailsnet

When you lobby Apple to expand the capabilities of Pages, you might also suggest that they create versions of the Books app for Windows and Android, so that books put in Apple's store can reach all platforms, just like those put in Amazon's store already can. They have had 11 years to consider this....

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