eBook files vs print files: why one book needs both

By Tracy Atkins, founder of BookDesigner.ai and BookDesignTemplates.com · 15+ years of print files, 70,000+ authors · Updated August 5, 2026

Two files, two philosophies

The single idea that clears up all the confusion is this: a print file is fixed, and an eBook file is fluid. Everything else follows from that.

A print file is a PDF that describes an exact object. The page is a set trim size, say 6 by 9 inches, and every word, image, and margin sits in a fixed place. Fonts are embedded so the press prints your type and not a substitute. The whole point is that page 112 is always page 112, identical on every copy that rolls off the press.

An eBook file is a reflowable ePub, and it makes the opposite promise. It carries no fixed pages at all. The reader decides the font, the size, the margins, even the background color, and the text rewraps on the fly to fit a phone held in one hand or a tablet propped on a table. The ePub does not describe an object; it describes the content and lets the device lay it out.

What "reflowable" quietly removes

Because an eBook has no fixed pages, several things you take for granted in print simply cease to exist. This surprises almost every first-time author:

• Page numbers have nothing to number. Change the font size and every page boundary moves, so a printed page number would point at nothing.
• Running headers and footers (the book title or chapter name along the top of each page) do not belong in a format without pages.
• A table of contents with page numbers becomes meaningless. Instead an eBook uses a linked contents list that jumps to each chapter, no page numbers involved.

None of this is a loss. It is the format working as designed. A good eBook navigates by links and by the reader's own device controls, not by the fixed geography of a printed page.

The classic mistake

Here is the error I see most often: an author finishes a beautiful print PDF, sees an eBook upload box, and uploads the same PDF. It feels efficient. It is a disaster on a phone. A print PDF forces its fixed 6-by-9 page onto a small reflowable screen, so the reader gets a tiny, un-resizable page they must pinch, zoom, and pan just to read one line. The text will not grow when they turn up the font size, because a PDF has no idea how to reflow. Readers bounce, and reviews suffer. The fix is simple: convert your manuscript to a proper reflowable ePub for the eBook, and keep the PDF for print only.

What each store actually wants

A couple of notes on that table. For eBooks, the standard ePub is the universal currency: Apple, Kobo, and the aggregators all take it, and Amazon KDP accepts it for Kindle too. Amazon also offers Kindle Create, which produces a KPF file, but that format is locked to Amazon and cannot be carried to other retailers, so a plain ePub keeps your options open. For print, both KDP and IngramSpark work from a PDF, though their exact requirements differ, which is a separate topic.

Images and tables behave differently

One more practical warning. Content that sits neatly in print can misbehave when it reflows. In a fixed PDF you place an image exactly where you want it and it stays. In an eBook that same image floats within rewrapping text and can land differently depending on the device. Tables are the harder case: a wide, multi-column table that reads cleanly on a printed page can break awkwardly on a narrow phone screen, because there is no fixed width to hold its columns. Complex tables and precisely placed figures often need a different treatment for the reflowable edition than they get in print. It is not that one format is better; it is that each wants its content shaped to suit it.

So, do you need both?

If you plan to sell your book in paperback or hardcover and as an eBook, then yes: you need a print PDF and a reflowable ePub, built from the same manuscript but produced as two distinct files. They are not interchangeable, and trying to make one do the other's job is where books go wrong. Build each properly and each edition reads the way its readers expect.

Source: current Amazon KDP, Apple Books, Kobo, and Draft2Digital format specifications, as of July 2026. Related: KDP vs IngramSpark: what each wants · Formatting a book in Word: the honest limits · All author guides