KDP Cover Fixer
Fix the most common reasons KDP rejects a cover, without opening your design app. Pick your book details and your cover: the fixer adds missing bleed, corrects the spine width, shows you exactly what changed, and checks the fixed file again before you download it.
ProComing soon
This tool is part of Pro
Add missing bleed, make the spine right for your page count and turn a JPG or PNG into a PDF, with every change shown before you download. It opens when Pro launches. Until then, these free tools do part of the job:
How to use it
- 1
Enter your book
Pick the book size, page count and paper you will choose on KDP. The fixed cover is made for exactly these.
- 2
Choose your cover
Pick or drop your cover PDF, JPG or PNG. It is changed on your computer and never uploaded.
- 3
Check and download
See what changed, before and after, and the checks on the fixed cover. Then download the fixed PDF.
The cover problems the fixer solves
Most rejected paperback covers are the right design at the wrong size. The two classic mistakes are a cover exported without bleed, and a cover made for one page count used for a book that grew or shrank. Both mean starting a new document and moving everything across. The fixer does that part for you.
Missing bleed
KDP needs 0.125 in of bleed on the top, bottom and both outside edges, so a 6 × 9 in book with 200 pages on white paper needs a 12.7004 × 9.25 in file. A cover exported at 12.4504 × 9 in has no bleed and is rejected. The fixer puts your artwork in the middle of a page at the right size and fills the new 0.125 in band from the artwork at the edge, so the colours carry on past the trim line.
The wrong spine width
The spine is your page count × the paper thickness: 0.002252 in per page on white paper, 0.0025 in on cream, 0.00235 in on groundwood and 0.002347 in on premium colour. If your interior grew from 180 to 200 pages, the spine must grow from 0.4054 in to 0.4504 in, and the whole cover gets 0.045 in wider. The fixer widens just the spine and moves the front cover across, so nothing on the front or back is stretched.
An image instead of a PDF
KDP takes a paperback cover only as a PDF. If you designed in an app that exports JPG or PNG, the fixer places your image in a PDF at the exact size, adding bleed if the image doesn’t include it. Your image should be at least 300 DPI at the printed size: a 12.7 × 9.25 in cover needs about 3,810 × 2,775 px.
What it won’t change
The fixer never moves your text or changes your pictures. If text sits too close to the edge, or a picture is below 300 DPI, those checks stay on the list for you to fix in your design app. Every change it does make is listed before you download.
Questions and answers
What can the cover fixer fix?
Missing bleed (it adds 0.125 in on every edge), bleed that stops at the trim line, a spine that is too wide or too narrow for your page count, a height that is slightly off, a cover saved as a JPG or PNG instead of a PDF, and extra pages in the file.
How does it add bleed?
It extends your artwork 0.125 in past every edge. “Mirror the edges” reflects the artwork at the edge, which suits photos and textures. “Stretch the edges” repeats the last line of pixels, which suits flat colours. The bleed is cut off when the book is trimmed, so it only needs to match the colours at the edge.
What happens when it fixes the spine?
The front and back covers keep their size and move with the spine; only the spine artwork is made wider or narrower. Because that needs separate copies of the artwork, the fixed cover is saved as one 300 DPI picture. KDP accepts that. For the sharpest spine text, make the same change in your design app instead.
Will the fixed cover pass KDP?
The size, bleed and spine will match KDP’s rules for your book: the fixer checks the fixed file again to make sure. It can’t move text that is too close to an edge or replace blurry pictures, so any of those checks still show here for you to fix in your design app.
Is my cover uploaded?
No. Your browser reads the file, makes the fixed copy and saves it, all on your own computer. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else.
Why can’t it fix my cover?
If the file is more than 0.1 in off in height, or the spine is more than 0.5 in off, the cover was almost certainly made for another book size or page count. Moving the artwork would make it worse, so start again from a cover template at the right size.
Is the cover fixer free?
The cover fixer is part of Pro, coming soon. Until then, the free cover checker tells you exactly what is wrong and by how much, and the free cover template gives you a document at the right size to start from.
Related tools
Cover template generator
Download a cover template that’s already the right size, ready for Canva or Photoshop.
Open tool