KDP tips for slimming down your download fees

Found my old notes on how to reduce the size of Kindle Files by manually editing the HTML, they might be useful to you and it's not all that hard to do, even though manually editing HTML sounds very intimidating. It should be noted that my version of Word is as old as my 2003 Laptop (Win XP, Word 2k?), so newer versions might act a little different.

Step 1> Save your DOC as a WEB page (.HTM). File/SaveAsWeb
Close Word. Make sure it isn't XML, this only applies to files ending in HTM.

Check where you saved the Web file. It should be Name.HTM AND, if you have images in the word file, you should also get a folder with a bunch of JPG and PNG image files in it. PNG files are HUGE while JPGs are TINY. We want to lose the PNG and keep the JPG and this will save your big download fees. Look at each image file, you should see the same image, once as a JPG and again as a PNG. If you do, this is good, it means you can reduce the file/download size by roughly the size of all the PNGs. Take note of what the numbers are with the PNGs and JPGs. PNGs are usually (but not always) odds and JPGs are usually evens.

Step 2> RIGHT CLICK on Name.HTM and OPEN WITH NotePad or WordPad but NOT WORD.

Step 3> use the Find function and search for image00
It should find something like this:
<v:imagedata src="./Personal%20space%20w%20cover_files/image001.png" o:title=""/>

Now, you have to do some manual editing, but it's easier than you think.
<v:imagedata src="./Personal%20space%20w%20cover_files/image001.png" o:title=""/>

Select everything from the left of the I in image to the quote, in this case ./Personal%20space%20w%20cover_files/ This part needs to be deleted. In this example, the Folder created was named Personal space cover_files. This tells the browser to look for images in that folder. We're changing that. % generally is a stand in for a blank space. You need to keep the " but lose everything up to the I in image.

It should now look something like this. (Yours will be a little different)
<v:imagedata src="image001.png" o:title=""/>

But you're still not done. We want JPGs because they're smaller. IF the image you've found ends in JPG, then you're done and you can move on and find the next image00 but this one needs a little more editing. Since there is no image001.jpg just changing the jpg isn't going to do. You also have to change the image number. Usually you can just at one to the image number and change it to a JPG, but check before you do.

In my case, it gets changed to this:

<v:imagedata src="image002.jpg" o:title=""/>

Now, go through the rest of the file until you reach the end. Remember, even if you screw this up, it's no big deal, you haven't changed the original DOC it came from, so worry not.

When you get to the end, simply save it and close NotePad or WordPad (whichever you used).

Now make a new folder (something like TEST) and copy the HTM file and all the JPGs (and only the JPGs) into it. Go into it and open the HTM with your browser of choice (NOT WORD!). Scroll through it and see if everything looks right. Pay special attention to the picture files. If something went wrong, you can generally tell because it'll have an empty picture frame where a picture should be. Generally this is caused by forgetting to change the image00 number, or changing a PNG to a JPG, or leaving a period after the first quote.

If it looks good and seems to work fine, great.

Check the sizes of the JPGs. If any of them are over 1 meg in size, consider opening them in an image editor and resaving them in at a lower resolution (changing dimensions sometimes causes problems, so don't resize them unless it can't be helped) check it again and if it looks good on your 16" computer screen, it'll look fine on a 7" Kindle. Remember, you're editing the JPGs in the TEST folder, you still have the originals to fall back on if you screw something up.

Last step> Select everything in your TEST folder (HTM and all of the JPG, that should be all there is in this folder) then RIGHT CLICK, Select SEND TO, and COMPRESSED FOLDER, then answer yes if something gets asked. After a few moments you should see a new file in that folder, ending in .ZIP. This is the file you upload to KDP instead of the normal DOC file.

Last word.

Things happen. You should ALWAYS look at every page in the Kindle Viewer, AND download the HTML file they offer (usually as a ZIP, so unzip it on your computer after downloading), open it in WORD, and use compare to compare it to the original DOC. I have caught GLITCHES before, so ALWAYS do something like this to check your book before going LIVE.

Good luck!

PS, cover image MB size plays big here too