Are You Ready to Go to Print?

What you need before you start

Choose your trim size and printer

"Trim size" is the finished page dimension of your printed book. Unlike an ebook, which reflows to fit any screen, a print interior is laid out for one exact size — this is the first decision every step downstream depends on.

Where to publish

Tag your manuscript with paragraph and character styles

This is the same Layout Styles workflow used for FusionMD's IDML export in general — see Tutorial 8 for the full mechanics. For a book interior, the style list is short and reusable across your entire catalog.

Open the Layout Styles panel

Press ⌘4, or click the inner-right panel button in the toolbar. It's available in Markdown, Variables, and Design modes — stay in whichever mode you already wrote the book in. You are tagging the finished manuscript, not rewriting it.

Add front and back matter directly in FusionMD

Before exporting, add these pages to the document itself, tagged with their own styles from the list above:

• Title page — book title, subtitle, author name.
• Copyright page — copyright notice, "All rights reserved," your ISBN once assigned, edition/printing information.
• Dedication — optional, but tag it distinctly so it doesn't inherit Body Text's justified paragraph styling.
• About the Author — typically the last page of the book, reusable across every title you publish.

Export to IDML

Click "Export as IDML…" in the navigation bar. FusionMD builds the file directly — no Pandoc, no third-party conversion tool. Every tagged paragraph and character style comes across prefixed [FUSION], so it's unmistakable in Affinity's Paragraph Styles panel and won't collide with anything already in a template you reuse across books.

Build the interior in Affinity

1. Switch to the Publish persona and create a new document at your trim size first. Rather than opening the IDML directly (which creates a document sized to whatever the export defaulted to), set up a document yourself: your Part 1 trim size, facing pages turned on (since a bound book prints as spreads, not single sheets), and an inside margin (gutter) wider than the outside margin to account for the binding swallowing a few millimeters on every spread.
2. Place the IDML content. File → Place, and select your exported .idml. Affinity flows the content into linked text frames across as many pages as it needs.
   If a paragraph or character style doesn't already exist in your document, Affinity creates it automatically from the incoming [FUSION]-prefixed name — nothing is dropped.
3. Style your Paragraph Styles panel. Open it and work through the list from Part 2 — this is where the book actually gets its typographic identity:
   • Body Text — a serif text face, 10–12pt, with leading around 1.3–1.4× the point size. This one definition controls the entire book's reading experience.
   • Body Text (First) — same face and size, first-line indent set to none.
   • Chapter Title — a larger display size, often a different typeface, generous space above.
   • Scene Break — centered, with space above and below.
4. Add running heads, footers, and page numbers. Use Affinity's master pages so page numbers and any running head (book title on verso pages, chapter title on recto pages is a common pattern) apply automatically across the whole interior — set once, not per page.
5. Proof the flow. Scroll through every spread. Check for widows and orphans (a single line stranded at the top or bottom of a page), chapter openings that land awkwardly, and that front/back matter pages you tagged in Part 2 landed where you expect.

Design your print cover

Your ebook cover and your print cover are not the same file. A print cover is a single flat artwork covering the back cover, spine, and front cover as one continuous piece — and the spine width depends on your final page count, so this step comes after your interior layout is locked.

What the wrap needs

• Front cover — the same artwork approach as your ebook cover, resized to the wrap template.
• Spine text — title and author name, required once your page count crosses roughly 79–100 pages (thinner books typically omit it — check your platform's current threshold).
• Back cover — your book's description (reuse the Description you already wrote in FusionMD's Metadata panel), a barcode area (KDP generates the barcode automatically if you use their free ISBN — leave the reserved area blank), and optional review quotes or author bio.
• Bleed — the full wrap must extend past the trim edge on every side, typically 0.125 in (3 mm), so nothing white shows at the cut edge.

Export print-ready PDFs

Interior and cover export separately, with different requirements.

In Affinity: File → Export → PDF → More, then choose the PDF/X-1a:2001 preset for both files. This is the standard prepress format both KDP Print and IngramSpark require.

Upload and order a proof

1. Go to kdp.amazon.com and open your existing book — the same title you published as an ebook.
2. Add a paperback format to that listing rather than creating a new book. This keeps the ebook and paperback linked on one Amazon product page.
3. Enter print details. Trim size, ISBN (accept KDP's free one, or supply your own), and bleed settings — matching what you exported in Part 6.
4. Upload your interior and cover PDFs. KDP's online previewer flags margin and bleed problems immediately — fix any issues in Affinity and re-export rather than guessing.
5. Order a physical proof before publishing. This is the step ebooks never required and print does — a screen preview cannot show you actual paper color, real font size in hand, or whether your margins feel right when the book is physically open. Order one, read it, then publish.
6. Set pricing and publish. KDP suggests a minimum price based on your page count and trim size (print costs scale with page count, unlike an ebook). Amazon reviews within 24–72 hours.