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chiify
EPUB conversion

Word, PDF, Google Doc → retail-grade EPUB. Free.

Upload your manuscript in any common writing format. We produce a clean, validated, WCAG-accessible EPUB that passes every major retailer's check — included on every Chiify plan, with no per-book fee.

Most authors don’t want to learn EPUB. They want to write a book and have it appear on Amazon and Apple Books.

But somewhere between Word and the store shelf, your manuscript has to become an EPUB — a specific, fussy format that retailers care about. Done badly, your book has broken navigation, terrible typography, missing accessibility metadata, or a table of contents that doesn’t link to anything. Done well, it’s indistinguishable from a Big-5 publisher release.

Chiify’s conversion pipeline was built for institutional publishers who can’t ship broken files. We’ve made it the default for every author at no cost.

What you upload, what we produce

Input

  • DOCX — recommended, produces the cleanest output
  • Google Doc — export as DOCX first
  • Markdown — also recommended, ideal for technical books
  • PDF — works if originally text-based; OCR available for scans
  • Plain text — works for poetry, short fiction, simple structures

Output

  • EPUB 3.3 (current standard) with EPUB 2 backward compatibility
  • Embedded fonts (or your specified fonts if licensed for embed)
  • Navigable table of contents linking to every chapter and major section
  • Semantic markup — proper h1/h2/h3, paragraphs, lists, blockquotes
  • Embedded cover image (we can extract from the cover file you uploaded)
  • Accessibility metadata for screen readers and EU Accessibility Act compliance
  • Passes EPUBCheck 5 (the official validator) and Apple iBooks Asset Guide tests

How the conversion pipeline works

1. Parse and structure

We parse your input file and detect the document structure — chapters, sections, headings, lists, images, footnotes, tables. If you’ve used proper styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, Body in Word), this is fast and precise. If your document is one giant paragraph with no styles, we fall back to heuristics and surface anything ambiguous for human review.

2. Build the EPUB skeleton

We split your manuscript into one XHTML file per chapter (so the book opens fast on slow devices), generate the OPF package file with proper metadata, the navigation document, and the spine — the table of contents the reader uses to jump around.

3. Embed assets

Cover image (resized to KDP-compatible resolution if needed), interior images (re-encoded for optimal size without quality loss), embedded fonts where licensed.

4. Auto-heal any defects

We run EPUBCheck against the result. Common defects (NCX UID mismatches, missing DOCTYPEs, broken navigation hrefs, remote resource references that aren’t allowed) are automatically repaired by our heal library — the same one we open-source for institutional partners.

5. Accessibility audit

Final WCAG 2.2 pass — alt-text presence, language declarations, semantic heading hierarchy, navigable nav-doc. Defects are flagged before delivery.

Lifetime EPUB Warranty

If a retailer ever rejects your EPUB for a technical defect — today, next year, ten years from now — we will regenerate the file at no charge. This warranty has no expiration and no cap. It’s the same warranty we offer institutional publishers.

Why we can do this: because our pipeline is automated, fixing an EPUB defect is cheap for us. We’d rather guarantee the file forever than charge you a re-conversion fee every time KDP changes a validation rule.

Frequently asked

Is the conversion really free, or is it a trial?
Really free. Conversion is included on every plan with no per-book fee, no limit on revisions, and no upsell to a premium tier. The reason this is feasible is that conversion costs us very little once the pipeline is built — and a clean EPUB is also what we need to ship the book to retailers anyway, so doing it well is in our interest as much as yours.
Which file formats do you accept as input?
DOCX (Microsoft Word), Google Doc (export as DOCX), Pages (export as DOCX), Markdown, plain text, and PDF (with some constraints — see below). Markdown and DOCX produce the cleanest output. PDF works but the quality of the resulting EPUB depends on how the PDF was originally generated.
What if my book has images, footnotes, or tables?
Handled automatically. Images are embedded at appropriate resolution, footnotes are converted to navigable EPUB-spec footnotes (tap a number, see the note, tap back), and tables are preserved as semantic tables (not as images of tables). Complex tables that won't reflow gracefully are flagged during review so we can talk to you about whether they should stay as-is, be simplified, or rendered as images with alt-text.
Can I see what the EPUB will look like before publishing?
Yes. After conversion, you can preview the EPUB in our in-browser reader (works on every device) before submitting for review. You can also download the EPUB and load it into Apple Books, Calibre, or your Kindle (sideload) for inspection.
What about PDF input? You said "with constraints".
PDFs are designed for fixed-layout print, not for reflowable reading. We can convert them, but the result depends on the PDF: a PDF generated from a text-based source (Word, InDesign with proper structure) converts well. A PDF generated as scanned images requires OCR first and the result is rougher. A PDF with a complex multi-column layout, sidebars, or text-wrapped images will need manual cleanup. If you only have a PDF, send it over and our team will give you an honest preview before you commit to a plan.
Will my EPUB pass Amazon KDP's strict validation?
Yes. We test against KDP's published rules and against Apple Books' more demanding validation suite. If a retailer ever rejects an EPUB we produced for a technical defect, we'll fix it and re-ship at no charge — that's our Lifetime EPUB Warranty.

Upload Word. Get a real EPUB.

Free, validated, accessible, and warrantied for life. Start with the file you already have.