Guides

How to format a book for IngramSpark

IngramSpark is the print-on-demand service that puts a book into the wholesale catalog bookshops and libraries order from. Its file rules are stricter than KDP's in a few specific ways, and once you know them one interior can serve both. Figures are from IngramSpark's File Creation Guide, August 2026 edition.

How IngramSpark differs from KDP

1. Trim size

IngramSpark's list is longer than KDP's and includes every size KDP prints. The seven common sizes, 5×8, 5.06×7.81, 5.25×8, 5.5×8.5, 6×9, 6.14×9.21 and 7×10, are all on both. Hardcover is available on more sizes at IngramSpark, including 5×8 and A5. If the book will be on both services, pick a size from the overlap and you can upload one interior twice. See book trim sizes explained.

2. Margins and bleed

IngramSpark does not publish a gutter table like KDP's. It recommends keeping text and images at least 0.5 in from every edge, and that is the number its automated check uses as a warning line. Any interior that satisfies KDP's gutter table and uses book-like outside margins of 0.5 in or more satisfies both. Bleed is 0.125 in, only on the three outer edges. Never add bleed on the spine side; the guide is explicit about it.

3. The PDF

Export the interior as PDF/X-1a:2001 if you can. The practical difference from an ordinary PDF: all fonts embedded, including the fourteen "base" fonts that some export presets skip, all transparency flattened, and no color profiles or annotations that a press cannot use. No crop marks, no bleed marks, no registration marks. Page size is the trim size, or trim plus bleed if any page bleeds. All pages must be the same size. See how to make a print-ready PDF for how to check a file.

Images: 300 ppi for photographs and grayscale art, 600 ppi for pure black-and-white line art. Cover images under 200 ppi are rejected.

4. The cover

IngramSpark generates a cover template for each title from the trim size, page count, paper and binding, and emails it to you. The template shows the trim, spine and safe areas, and it should be used, because IngramSpark's spine widths come from its own paper stocks (50 lb white or creme and 70 lb white for color) and differ a little from KDP's. Build the cover on the template, remove the template layer, and export as PDF/X-1a with fonts embedded. The barcode goes in the lower right of the back cover; IngramSpark can add one from the ISBN.

If the same design is going to KDP, keep the artwork in one file and set the spine to each printer's width. A spine that is 0.03 in wrong is visible on the shelf.

5. ISBN and metadata

IngramSpark requires an ISBN you own or one it provides. The title, subtitle, author and ISBN in the file's front matter must match what you enter in the account; mismatches hold up the title. The copyright page should carry the ISBN of the print edition, and the ebook a different ISBN if you assign one.

6. Upload and proof

Upload the interior and cover, wait for the file check, and read its report. The two most common failures are fonts not embedded and text inside the 0.5 in safety zone, usually running heads or page numbers. Then order a physical proof. Ingram's printers vary slightly from Amazon's, and the only way to see the gutter and the spine on the actual paper is to hold the book.