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Formatting a book in Google Docs

By Lukas · updated 30 October 2026

Google Docs is a good place to write a book, and you can get a printable PDF out of it. It wasn’t made for print, though: it has no gutter and no mirrored margins, and it can’t start a chapter on a right-hand page. This guide shows what Docs can do for a paperback, how to set it up for a KDP trim size, where it runs out, and how to take the manuscript elsewhere when it does. Most of the Docs features named here are from Google’s own help pages, checked on 30 October 2026. Three things are not from them: that Paper size has no custom size, which I checked in Docs itself; the Page Sizer add-on; and the Word (.docx) download.

1. What Docs can and can’t do

A printed book needs	In Google Docs
The trim size as the page size	Partly: File › Page setup › Paper size offers a list of sizes and no custom size, and KDP’s trim sizes aren’t in the list. An add-on can set an exact size (step 2).
A wider inside margin (gutter) that switches sides	No. Page setup has orientation, paper size, margins and page colour, and nothing for facing pages or a gutter.
Different running heads on left and right pages	Yes: “Different odd and even” in the header’s options.
No header or page number on a chapter’s first page	Partly: “Different first page” works for the first page of each section, so each chapter has to be its own section.
Roman page numbers in the front matter, 1 from the first chapter	Partly: page numbers can be applied to a section, but Google’s help doesn’t say how to restart the count there, and it doesn’t mention roman numerals.
Chapters that start on a right-hand page	No setting for it. You add a blank page by hand where one is needed.
Footnotes	Yes: Insert › Page elements › Footnote.
Justified text with hyphenation	Justified, yes (Format › Align & indent). Google’s help mentions no hyphenation, so justified lines can show wide gaps.
Bleed for pictures that run off the page	No setting for it.
A PDF with every font embedded	File › Download gives a PDF; Google’s help says nothing about fonts in it, so check them (step 4).

So Docs gets you a simple paperback: text only or with pictures inside the margins, page numbers, perhaps running heads. A book that needs bleed, or chapters on right-hand pages without counting pages by hand, needs another tool.

One switch comes first. Docs has two formats, Pages and Pageless, chosen at the top of File › Page setup. Pageless has no page size, no headers, footers or page numbers, and puts all footnotes at the end of the document. For a book, choose Pages.

2. Set up a KDP trim size

Choose the trim size before you start: see choosing a trim size. Then, in a document in the Pages format:

Open File › Page setup.
Look at Paper size. Docs has no custom size there, and its list doesn’t include KDP’s trim sizes, such as 6 × 9 in. For an exact size, install the free “Page Sizer” add-on from the Google Workspace Marketplace (Extensions › Add-ons) and set the trim size with it. Otherwise pick the nearest size in the list, knowing that the PDF’s pages then have that size, not your trim size.
Set the margins (below). Under “Apply to”, choose “Whole document”.
If you want every new document like this, click “Set as default”.

The margins are where Docs falls short. In a printed book the inside margin, the gutter, sits on the left of a right-hand page and on the right of a left-hand page. KDP wants it wider the thicker the book: 0.375 in (9.6 mm) up to 150 pages, 0.5 in (12.7 mm) up to 300, 0.625 in (15.9 mm) up to 500, 0.75 in (19.1 mm) up to 700 and 0.875 in (22.3 mm) above. The other sides need at least 0.25 in (6.4 mm).

Docs can’t mirror margins, so the only way to give every page its gutter is to give both side margins the gutter’s width. For a 6 × 9 in book of 250 pages that is at least 0.5 in on the left and the right, and at least 0.25 in at the top and bottom. Headers and page numbers have to fit inside the page too; their distance from the edge is under Format › Headers & footers › More options. The pages come out symmetrical, with a wider outside margin than a typeset book would have. That is a look, not an error: KDP checks minimums, not symmetry. The margin calculator gives the gutter for your page count, and the page count calculator estimates the page count before you have one.

The page count changes the gutter, and the page size changes the page count. Set the size and margins first and write or paste into them, so the page count you see is the real one.

3. Chapters, headers and page numbers

Start each chapter with Insert › Break › Section break (next page), not a page break. A section can have its own header, footer, margins and page numbering, and that is what makes a chapter opening possible:

Headers and footers: Insert › Page elements › Header or Footer. Click into a header and open Options to set “Different first page” and, with “Apply to: Whole document”, “Different odd and even”. To give a section its own header, untick “Link to previous” in it.
Page numbers: Insert › Page elements › Page number. Under More options, “Apply to” sets which part of the document gets the numbers. If the dialog in your Docs also lets you set the number to start from, you can have the first chapter begin at 1 after the title pages.
Chapter titles: give each one the Heading 1 style. It keeps them consistent, Docs lists them in its outline, and Kernsetzer and other tools read them as chapters (step 5).

In print, page 1 is a right-hand page, so every odd page is on the right. A chapter that should open on the right but would fall on an even page needs an empty page before it. Check this at the end, because every edit before it can move the pages.

4. Download the PDF and check it

File › Download gives a PDF of the document at the page size you set. Google’s help doesn’t say whether the fonts are embedded, and it offers no PDF/X and no bleed. So check the file before you upload it:

Every page has the trim size. In a PDF reader, the document properties show the page size.
Every font is embedded completely, not as a subset: KDP asks for that. The document properties list the fonts (in Adobe Acrobat under File › Properties › Fonts), and Acrobat marks a subset as “Embedded Subset”.
The page count is even, or you know KDP will add a blank page at the end.
Nothing runs closer to an edge than the margins you set: pictures, headers, page numbers.
Pictures are sharp enough: 300 dpi at the printed size.

Then upload it and read the KDP previewer page by page. The KDP paperback guide has the rest of KDP’s rules and a checklist, and when KDP rejects your paperback covers the usual reasons and fixes.

5. Or take the .docx to Kernsetzer

If you need a gutter, chapters on right-hand pages, hyphenation or an EPUB from the same file, take the text out of Docs as it is: File › Download, then Microsoft Word (.docx). The page size and margins you set in Docs don’t matter for this, because Kernsetzer sets the book from scratch for the trim size you choose.

Kernsetzer reads the file by its styles, and a .docx from Docs keeps the styles you gave the text. I haven’t yet imported a real export from Google Docs. Kernsetzer’s tests use a stand-in, a .docx written the way Docs writes one, and with it these came through:

Title and Subtitle became the book’s title page.
Heading 1 became a chapter, Heading 2 a heading inside it.
Italics and bold stayed italics and bold.
A centred line of three asterisks, * * *, became a scene break.
Footnotes stayed footnotes, and pictures stayed pictures.

The section breaks, headers, page numbers and blank pages from step 3 aren’t needed: Kernsetzer sets its own running heads and page numbers, mirrors the margins with the gutter for your page count, and starts chapters on a right-hand page. The styles are the same as Word’s, so the Word manuscript guide applies to a Google Doc too, style for style. If you’d rather finish the layout in a word processor after all, the Word book templates have mirrored margins set up, which Docs can’t do.

Kernsetzer’s public beta starts in mid-November. Sign up for the beta.

Sources: Google’s Docs Editors Help on page settings, pages and pageless, headers, footers, page numbers and footnotes, section breaks, downloading a file and formatting text, read on 30 October 2026. Google renames menus from time to time, so the names may differ in your Docs. KDP’s margins are from the pages listed in the KDP guide. The import test, with the stand-in file, used Kernsetzer’s development build of 30 October 2026.