Reflowable vs fixed layout: which ebook format suits your book

An ebook comes in one of two shapes: reflowable, where the text rearranges itself to fit the screen, or fixed layout, where every page looks exactly as it was designed. Novels, memoirs and nonfiction almost always come out reflowable. Illustrated children's books, coffee table books and comics come out in fixed layout. The choice between reflowable vs fixed layout affects how the book looks, which devices it works on, and, in a translated book, how much work there will be after the translation.

What is reflowable layout

Think of a web page you open on your phone and then on your computer. The text is the same, but the lines break in different places. That's how a reflowable book works.

On a Kindle, the reader can make the font bigger, switch fonts, or turn the device sideways. The text just flows again. There's no fixed "page 47", because what fits on one screen depends on the device and the settings.

On Amazon's help page comparing the formats, reflowable layout is meant for books that are mostly text. It works on every Kindle device and app, and supports changing the font size, the dictionary, highlighting, word search and screen readers. The downside Amazon itself points out: complex layouts can be hard or impossible to reproduce.

What is fixed layout

In fixed layout, every page is like a picture of the printed page. The illustration goes here, the text goes there, and nothing moves.

On the same page, Amazon recommends it for image-rich books with little text, such as illustrated children's books and coffee table books, and for comics. But it comes at a price. In most kinds of fixed layout the reader can't change the font size, there's no dictionary and no text selection, and no screen reader support. Not every Kindle device displays them, either.

Reflowable vs fixed layout: a quick table

	Reflowable	Fixed layout
Suits	Novel, memoir, nonfiction	Illustrated children's book, coffee table book, comics
Reader can change font size	Yes	Mostly no
Screen readers	Supported	Mostly not
Works on every Kindle device	Yes	Not all of them
Page looks like the printed one	No	Yes

Why this matters in a translated book in particular

Because translation changes the length of the text. A sentence in Hebrew often comes out longer in English, and sometimes longer still in French or Spanish. We wrote about that in why a translated book has a different page count.

In a reflowable book, this changes nothing. The text just flows, and the book gets a few screens longer. Nobody notices.

In fixed layout, it's a real problem. Every piece of text has to fit the space set aside for it on the illustration. If the translated sentence is longer than the space, it doesn't fit. So you either shorten the translation, change the layout, or shrink the font. Each of these takes work. And a book translated from Hebrew also has its reading direction flip, which we covered in when a book changes reading direction.

How to prepare each one

For a reflowable book, a clean text file is usually enough, with clear chapter headings and no manual layout. An EPUB (the standard file format for ebooks) works too. We wrote about choosing the file in which file a bookstore wants from you.

For a fixed layout book, Amazon's layout tool, Kindle Create, can take a PDF or images and turn them into an illustrated book, a children's book or a comic. If you're reading older guides, note this: Amazon's two earlier dedicated tools for children's books and comics stopped being available in early 2025. Amazon now recommends Kindle Create or an EPUB file.

There's support outside Amazon too. Apple Books' guide describes fixed layout books for titles that need precise design.

How to decide

One question does most of the work: if the reader makes the font bigger, does the book still work?

For a novel, yes. The story doesn't depend on where the words sit on the page. For a children's book where the words are written inside the sky of the illustration, no.

If your book is somewhere in between, say a cookbook with lots of photos or a guide full of tables, try reflowable first. It's more accessible and works everywhere. If the result breaks, switch to fixed. And for a translated book, decide this before the translation starts, because in a fixed layout book the translator needs to know how much room they have. More questions are collected in our frequently asked questions.