What is the best book formatting software?

For output quality on a Mac, Vellum, and it is not close. It is also $249.99 and runs on nothing else. For one tool that does everything on any operating system, Atticus at $147. For free and good enough for most novels, this tool or Reedsy Studio. For a complex illustrated book, InDesign and a subscription. The honest answer depends on the book and the machine, which is why this page is a table rather than a winner.

Is there a free alternative to Vellum?

For the ebook, several, and some of them are genuinely good. For the printed interior, far fewer: most free tools either produce no print PDF or produce one with symmetrical margins and no gutter, which is the one defect that reaches a printed proof copy. This tool does the print side specifically because that is where the free options stop.

Does Vellum work on Windows?

No. Vellum is macOS only, macOS 13 or newer as of this writing, and there is no Windows version or web version. Authors on Windows who want it buy a second-hand Mac or rent one by the hour, which is a real and widely-used workaround and also an absurd one.

Can I format a book in Microsoft Word?

You can, and plenty of published books were. Word does mirrored margins, it does widow and orphan control, and it exports PDF. What it does not do is paragraph-level line breaking, proper small capitals, drop capitals measured from font metrics, or an EPUB worth the name. Its EPUB export does not exist and its HTML export is unusable. Word is viable for a print interior if you are patient; it is not viable for the ebook.

Should I pay someone to format my book?

Between about $50 and $400 buys a formatting service, and for a straightforward novel they are doing something a tool does in a minute. It is worth paying when the book is genuinely complicated (heavy illustration, load-bearing tables, foot-of-page footnotes, an academic apparatus), or when you would rather spend the money than the afternoon. Both are good reasons.

Book formatting software, compared

Seven tools, including this one, with what each is genuinely good at and where each one stops, including the cases where the answer is not this tool.

Checked against the published specifications on 2026-10-17.

The short version

Tool	Price	Runs on	Ebook	Print	Where it stops
Vellum	$199.99 ebook / $249.99 with print	macOS only	Excellent	Excellent	Mac only; limited with heavy non-fiction apparatus
Atticus	$147 one-time	Web, any OS	Very good	Good	Reported to slow down on very long manuscripts; tables in EPUB on its roadmap
BookFormatter	Free	Browser, any OS	Very good	Very good	No writing, no editing, no foot-of-page footnotes, no illustrated layout
Reedsy Studio	Free	Web, any OS	Good	Good	One design; account required; your manuscript lives on their servers
Kindle Create	Free	Windows, macOS	Good on Amazon	Basic	Produces a format only Amazon reads
Sigil	Free	Windows, macOS, Linux	Whatever you build	None	It is an EPUB editor, not a formatter: you write the HTML and CSS
Adobe InDesign	Subscription, about $23/month	Windows, macOS	Good	Unmatched	A professional tool with a professional learning curve

The longer version

Vellum: the one everyone recommends, if you have a Mac

Vellum produces the best-looking output in this category and it is not a close contest. The designs are genuinely designed, the defaults are right, and the ebook and print files come out of one place looking like the same book. It is also macOS only, at $199.99 for ebooks or $249.99 with print, and the Mac-only part is the single most common complaint about it. Authors on Windows buy second-hand Mac Minis to run it, which tells you both how good it is and how annoying the restriction is.

Where it has limits: books with extensive footnotes, multi-column layouts, sidebars or detailed tables. It is built for narrative, and narrative is what it is superb at.

Atticus: the cross-platform answer

$147 once, for ebook and print, on any operating system, with a writing editor attached. For most authors who want one tool and do not have a Mac, this is the straightforward recommendation.

The reservations in published reviews are consistent: the print micro-typography does not quite reach Vellum’s, it slows down on very long manuscripts, and some non-fiction features, tables in EPUB among them, are still on its roadmap rather than in it.

BookFormatter: this one

What it does not do, first. It is not a writing tool and will not become one: the manuscript stays in your writing app. It does not do foot-of-the-page footnotes in print; they become endnotes. It does not lay out illustrated books, cookbooks or anything where the pictures drive the page. It has eight designs and no way to build a ninth. And it is new, which means fewer people have put strange manuscripts through it than through the paid tools.

What it does: a valid EPUB 3 with derived accessibility metadata, and a print interior typeset with paragraph-level line breaking, hyphenation, widow and orphan control, mirrored margins and a gutter resolved against the final page count. Free, no account, and the manuscript never leaves the browser, which for an unpublished book is not a small thing.

Pick it over Atticus if you want the print typesetting and not the writing editor, or if you would rather not upload a manuscript. Pick Atticus over it if you want one application for the whole process. Pick Vellum over both if you have a Mac and $250.

Reedsy Studio: free, opinionated, hosted

Free, competent, and produces files KDP accepts. Two things to know: there is essentially one design, so every book made with it looks like every other book made with it; and the manuscript lives on Reedsy’s servers behind an account. Neither is a flaw, but both are choices.

Kindle Create: free, and a dead end

Amazon’s own, free, and the output on Kindle is fine. It produces a KPF, which is a proprietary package no other retailer reads. If you are certain the book will only ever be on Amazon it is a reasonable choice; the day you want to be on Kobo as well, you start over.

Sigil: free, and not a formatter

Sigil is an EPUB editor: it opens the package and lets you edit the XHTML and CSS by hand. It is excellent at that and it is the right tool for fixing a file. It will not format a manuscript for you, and using it means knowing HTML and CSS, which the self-publishing advice that recommends it tends to mention only in passing.

InDesign: the professional answer

Everything else here is a simplification of what InDesign does. If the book is illustrated, if the pages are designed rather than set, if there are sidebars and pull quotes and a grid, this is the tool and nothing else comes close. It is a subscription of roughly $23 a month and a genuine learning curve, and its EPUB export needs care.

Choosing

A novel, on a Mac, with a budget. Vellum.
A novel, on Windows, with a budget. Atticus.
A novel, no budget. This, or Reedsy Studio.
Non-fiction with subheadings, lists and tables. This or Atticus; Vellum struggles with apparatus.
An illustrated book, a cookbook, a children’s picture book. InDesign, or a designer.
An academic book with foot-of-page footnotes. InDesign or LaTeX. None of the consumer tools, this one included, place notes at the foot of the page.
A file that is nearly right and needs one thing fixed. Sigil.

If none of that resolves it: the cheapest way to decide is to run the same manuscript through two of them and look at the same spread side by side. This one takes about ten seconds and asks nothing of you.

Questions

What is the best book formatting software?: For output quality on a Mac, Vellum, and it is not close. It is also $249.99 and runs on nothing else. For one tool that does everything on any operating system, Atticus at $147. For free and good enough for most novels, this tool or Reedsy Studio. For a complex illustrated book, InDesign and a subscription. The honest answer depends on the book and the machine, which is why this page is a table rather than a winner.
Is there a free alternative to Vellum?: For the ebook, several, and some of them are genuinely good. For the printed interior, far fewer: most free tools either produce no print PDF or produce one with symmetrical margins and no gutter, which is the one defect that reaches a printed proof copy. This tool does the print side specifically because that is where the free options stop.
Does Vellum work on Windows?: No. Vellum is macOS only, macOS 13 or newer as of this writing, and there is no Windows version or web version. Authors on Windows who want it buy a second-hand Mac or rent one by the hour, which is a real and widely-used workaround and also an absurd one.
Can I format a book in Microsoft Word?: You can, and plenty of published books were. Word does mirrored margins, it does widow and orphan control, and it exports PDF. What it does not do is paragraph-level line breaking, proper small capitals, drop capitals measured from font metrics, or an EPUB worth the name. Its EPUB export does not exist and its HTML export is unusable. Word is viable for a print interior if you are patient; it is not viable for the ebook.
Should I pay someone to format my book?: Between about $50 and $400 buys a formatting service, and for a straightforward novel they are doing something a tool does in a minute. It is worth paying when the book is genuinely complicated (heavy illustration, load-bearing tables, foot-of-page footnotes, an academic apparatus), or when you would rather spend the money than the afternoon. Both are good reasons.

Try it on your own manuscript

Open a Word file and see the EPUB and the printed pages in a few seconds. Free, no account, and the manuscript never leaves your browser.

Format a book