Your Manuscript in Affinity Publisher
With my fully edited, proofread, final, final version of my Word manuscript in hand, I was ready to prepare my work for publication. Several good options exist for this, some easier than Affinity Publisher. I chose Affinity for two main reasons. I already owned Affinity software, having used it for photo prep in the past. Secondly, I have epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter, and I couldn’t figure out a way of dealing with those in the other software I tested.
Now, here I will cheat, and shorten this blog by a gizillion lines. If you want to learn how to use Affinity Publisher to input your Word manuscript, and manipulate it to create your formatted masterpiece, then watch this brilliant video by R. L. Parker, fantasy author. He also has a second video demonstrating more advanced techniques. I admit, taking this path will test your learning skills, and this won’t be the choice for everyone, but R. L. is a wonderfully eloquent guide and his first video worked for me. If you are serious about using Affinity Publisher to create your print-ready document, then I really recommend you watch these videos, then perform trial runs on your document to hone your skills.
So is that the blog done? Not quite. Here are some additional thoughts.
Word document. Make sure you have this formatted with consistent styles applied. Consistent header style for your chapter headings. Consistent body text style. Maybe you want a different style for the first paragraph of each scene - a ‘no indent’ style. Or a different heading style for your prologue, glossary. I had another for my epigraphs. Again, take a look at R. L.’s first video, and you’ll see why this is important.
Vertical Justification. For a polished look, vertically justify your pages. This ensures the text at the bottom of facing pages aligns. This is simple to apply in Affinity Publisher, but with one important caveat. Make sure this is the very last thing you do! To vertically align the whole document, apply this formatting to the master page, which will push it throughout the book. Then, work through your manuscript to remove the vertical alignment from those pages that don’t need it, eg, most often the last page of a chapter. To do this, first temporarily detach the chosen page from the master, then reset the alignment. Move to the next end of chapter page, and repeat. It only takes 15-30mins or so, then you’re done. Now the catch. Affinity remembers this operation on each of the document pages you applied it on. Document page, not book page number. So, if you make some change that shifts book pages in the document, your ‘detached master’ formatting will now be applied to the wrong book page. This is a real pain, ‘cos now you have to find the affected pages and correct: justify the unjustified page, and ‘unjustify’ the wrongly justified page. Yes, it’s as big a pain as it sounds. So make sure this is the last thing you do!
Page numbering. In the section manager, create Front, Body, and Back Matter sections. Set the Body Matter section to start at Page 1. Within the document, remove page numbers from the Front and Back Matter. Make sure Page 1 of the Body Matter starts on the right.
pdf format. I’ve seen this question arise in several places. What pdf format will KDP accept from Affinity? Or Ingramspark? I’ve used PDF/X-1a:2003 for all of my three books, paperback and hardcover, for KDP and IG. As of 1 Oct 2025, it works. Just remember to export as pages (not spreads). And export an even number of pages. Add a blank page to the back matter if you need to.