How to Use Photoshop Artboards for KDP Children’s Book Layout

If you’re creating your children’s book for KDP in Photoshop, then I recommend trying out artboards. Using artboards, you can see the whole layout of your children’s book all at once, and you can see spreads easier, too. Plus, exporting to PDF is really easy. But FYI, it may be a bit slow depending on your computer. So you’ll just need to try it and see if it works for you.

Here’s how to set it up:

  1. Figure out your children’s book size from the KDP help page Set Trim Size, Bleed, and Margins
  2. In Photoshop, go to File → New
  3. Enter dimensions that you got from step one, & set DPI to 300
  4. Make sure you have Use Artboards checked

Editing the pages:

  1. To get into artboard editing mode, make sure you click the title of the artboard, not the artboard itself.
  2. Add more pages by clicking on the + signs
  3. In the layers panel, you’ll see a folder for each canvas – this is where you will put the art & text for the corresponding page
  4. Copy/paste is tricky – duplicate the layer in the layers panel, then drag to appropriate folder

Exporting:

  1. Go to File → Export → Artboards to PDF
  2. Check Artboard Content Only
  3. Uncheck Export Selected Artboards (you want them all to export)
  4. Make sure Quality is set to 12 (the highest)
  5. Click Run

Don’t have Photoshop? Download a free trial here.