The InDesign Plugin for Kindle is Now Available
Today, Amazon launched a new tool which allows publishers to more easily make books available for Kindle by converting Adobe InDesign® files directly into the Kindle format. For you publishers out there who build your books in InDesign, this will make creating Kindle books easier than ever.
Having personally used the InDesign plugin for Kindle, I can honestly say it’s one of the easiest ways to create a Kindle-ready file. It’s literally just a few clicks from an .indd document to a Kindle book. You select “Export to Kindle”, pick a TOC option and a cover image, and save the file. Simple as that.
The plugin is best suited for books that are comprised of text (it’s perfect for novels) and other linear content. (if there are occasional graphics, that’s ok too). And while most formatting is easily preserved with character and paragraph stylesheets in the InDesign file, things like custom fonts aren’t yet supported. The best way to optimize your book files for Kindle is to convert a document with the plugin and then view it with the free Kindle Previewer, which provides a one-to-one experience with what your readers will see.
Enjoy the new tool at your disposal, and we look forward to seeing your books available on Kindle!
For more information about and to download Kindle for Adobe InDesign® (Beta), visit our Publish on Kindle page.
Michael W. Perry on 10/01/2010 at 11:10 AM
Many thanks for this good news! I recently picked up a Kindle in preparation for releasing some of our 30+ titles for it. I've been dreading the InDesign to Kindle conversion process. This will make it much easier and let me view/tweak the files before sending them to Amazon.
From the manual, here are the ID and OS versions supported:
Kindle for Adobe InDesign® (Beta) version 0.9 supports Adobe InDesign® versions CS4 and CS5.
The supported operating systems are listed below.
i. Windows XP
ii. Windows 7
iii. WindowsVista
iv. Mac 10.6
v. Mac 10.5 (experimental)
They're calling it the 0.9 version, which usually means stable and almost ready for regular use.
--Michael W. Perry, author of Untangling Tolkien