PrintReadyCover

KDP Hardcover Cover Calculator

For authors printing a case laminate hardcover through Amazon KDP. Hardcover is already selected: enter your trim size, page count and paper for the full wrap size and spine, then download a template or check your finished PDF.

Your book

Binding

Use your final interior page count. The spine changes with every page.

Check your finished cover

Waiting for a cover

  • Page size–
  • One page–
  • Text inside safe area–
  • Spine text–
  • Barcode area–
  • Image resolution–
  • Fonts embedded–
  • Artwork near trim–

Colour and transparency aren't checked yet, and text that's part of an image can only be checked near the trim.

Full cover width

14.214in

361.0 mm · 4,264 px

Full cover height

10.417in

264.6 mm · 3,125 px

Spine width

0.639in

16.2 mm · 192 px

Spine text

Allowed

Keep it inside the safe area

Your cover, to scale

Example artwork. Pixels are at 300 DPI.

A coastal town. A missing boat.

When the sea gives back what it took, one family must decide what the truth is worth.

The Long Tide

The Long Tide

Mira Calloway

Barcode
Wrap
Artwork that folds around the board, inside the cover.
Board edge
The outer edge of the finished cover.
Safe area
Keep words and logos inside this line.
Spine
Its width depends on your page count.

How a KDP hardcover cover size is worked out

A hardcover cover is one flat file, like a paperback's, but it has to wrap around a stiff board. That makes it much bigger than the book. Instead of 0.125 in of bleed, the file carries a 15 mm wrap on every side, and the boards are a little wider and taller than the pages inside.

Full width is twice the wrap, plus twice the board width, plus the spine. Full height is twice the wrap, plus the board height.

For a 6 x 9 hardcover with 200 pages on white paper, the board is 6.197 x 9.236 in and the spine is 0.639 in. The full cover is 14.214 x 10.417 in. A paperback of the same book needs 12.700 x 9.250 in, so a paperback template can't be reused for a hardcover.

Wrap15 mm of artwork folded around the board, on every side
0.591 in
Board widthThe board is wider than the pages
Trim + 0.197 in
Board heightAnd taller than the pages
Trim + 0.236 in
SpineThe extra 0.189 in is the hardcover spine allowance
Pages x paper + 0.189 in
HingeBeside the spine. Keep text out
0.394 in
Text marginInside the board edge. Spine text needs 0.0625 in
0.125 in

Hardcover cover sizes for KDP trim sizes

KDP offers five hardcover trim sizes. These figures are for 200 pages on white paper, and the spine changes with your page count and paper.

Full cover size by trim size

200 pages, black ink on white paper. Sizes in inches.

Trim sizeSpineFull cover
5.5 x 8.50.63913.214 x 9.917
6 x 90.63914.214 x 10.417
6.14 x 9.210.63914.494 x 10.627
7 x 100.63916.214 x 11.417
8.25 x 110.63918.714 x 12.417

Hardcover paper and spine

Spine for a 6 x 9 book with 200 pages, in inches.

InteriorPer pageSpine
Black ink, white paper0.0022520.639
Black ink, cream paper0.00250.689
Premium colour, white paper0.0023470.658

Page counts, paper and trim sizes

Hardcovers take 76 to 550 pages. Amazon's help page says 75, but its cover calculator enforces 76, and the calculator is what this tool follows. KDP rounds an odd page count up to an even one, so 75 pages would print as 76 anyway.

The spine moves with the page count. A 6 x 9 hardcover on white paper has a 0.360 in spine at 76 pages and 1.428 in at 550, so use your final count, not an estimate. If the page count changes after the cover is designed, the file size changes and the front cover moves.

Amazon's calculator offers hardcovers in black ink on white or cream paper, or in premium colour, so those are the choices here. The wrap figure also differs from Amazon's help page, which gives 0.51 in. Its calculator uses 0.591 in, so that is the figure used here.

Designing and checking a hardcover cover

Download the template as a PDF, or as a PNG if you design in Canva, and place it under your artwork as a guide. Keep titles, author names and small print inside the safe margin, and clear of the hinge beside the spine.

The template marks a barcode area on the back cover, so keep it free of anything you need people to read. Amazon's pages disagree on some barcode details, so the checker reports an overlap as a warning to review, never as a failure.

When your PDF is finished, add it to the checker above with Hardcover selected. It measures the page size against your book, finds text near the edges, spine and barcode, and flags images under 300 DPI and fonts that aren't embedded. It also says so when it can't read any live text. Your file is read on your device and never uploaded.

What this page doesn't cover

Sizes were last compared with Amazon's cover calculator on 2 November 2026, for seven hardcover combinations of trim, page count and paper, and they matched to three decimal places. We haven't yet compared a hardcover in KDP's Print Previewer, which needs a KDP account.

Dust jackets aren't supported. Amazon's calculator offers a dust jacket option, but it returned the same numbers as case laminate and its help pages don't describe the difference, so check a jacket with Amazon's own calculator.

A clean result is a set of measurements, not a promise. Colour and transparency aren't checked yet, and KDP reviews your files after you submit them. Always look at your file in KDP's print previewer before you publish.

Printing a paperback instead? The main calculator covers paperback trim sizes, including custom ones. For the spine alone, see the spine width calculator.

More KDP cover guides

The same free tool, set up for other questions. Your files stay on your device.