User`s guide

Publishing on Kindle: Guidelines for Publishers
Optimize line-art GIFs before submitting them to KindleGen. Resizing or JPEG compression introduces
blurriness or unwanted artifacts in line-art images, which is why Amazon insists on GIF or PNG file
formats for line-art.
To optimize GIFs and PNGs and make them fit in the 127 KB limit, try the following tips:
• Try reducing the number of colors used. This can often be done without altering the quality of the
image. Line-art images that appear to be black and white might actually be in color because of
certain anti-aliasing algorithms. Here is an example (notice the shades of red and blue around the
“A” in the left picture):
• Remove white margins around the image, if any exist. When cropping, consider how the image
will look on devices set to white, sepia, and black backgrounds.
• Resize the image, if necessary, but pay close attention to the legibility of text (see section 3.6.6,
Image Guideline #6: Image and Font Size Requirements for Line-Art and Text).
3.6.6 Image Guideline #6: Image and Font Size Requirements for Line-Art and Text
An image containing text should not be significantly larger than a Kindle screen. The Kindle e Ink devices
offer the possibility to rotate an image to use more screen real estate. The Fire tablets and the Kindle for
iPhone application allow zooming and panning. However, reading experience degrades rapidly for very
large line-art images.
The following rules ensure a good rendering on all Kindle platforms for line-art images containing text:
• The MAXIMUM image size is 500 x 600 pixels. This ensures that the image is not shrunk on a
Kindle device, which could make the text illegible.
• The MINIMUM size of text is 6 pixels for the height of a lowercase “a.”The image itself will need to
be larger than 6 pixels in height if there is any extra space above or below the “a.” For an image
that contains only a single line of text, such as the example below, the image should be at least
45 pixels in height so that it displays proportional to surrounding text content.
These rules limit the size of tables rendered as pictures. Larger tables should be reformatted.
Kindle Publishing Guidelines Amazon.com 22