# What is trim size?

Trim size is a printed book's final width and height, measured after the pages are cut. KDP's own definition is “your printed book's width and height”. It sets the page count, the spine's width, part of the printing cost, and how the book feels in the hand.

Last reviewed 30 October 2026. Web page: https://chapbook.ink/glossary/trim-size/

## What it means in practice

Choose the trim before you judge the page count: the same words take more pages on a smaller page. Page count in turn sets the [gutter](/glossary/gutter/), the [spine](/glossary/spine/) and the printing cost, which KDP works out from trim size, page count, ink and paper.

KDP treats 5.5 × 8.5 in and 6 × 9 in as regular trims. 7 × 10 in and 8.5 × 11 in are large trims, which print at a different cost.

## How Chapbook uses it

A nonfiction book, workbook or guide has a [Paperback interior](/manual/launch-and-export/#make-a-paperback-interior) row where you pick the trim. A book set on 6 × 9 in suggests that trim, and one on US Letter or A4 suggests 8.5 × 11 in.

The sample on this page is a digital PDF on a 6 × 9 in page, the size its paperback would start from. To see what the words come to, the free [words to pages](/tools/words-to-pages/) tool estimates a book's pages from its word count.

## Made with Chapbook: The Pricing Playbook

The Pricing Playbook: How founders set a price they can defend, by Jane Founder. Nonfiction book, 9,862 words, 43 pages. A sample generated from one brief and exported unedited; it is not a customer's book. Read every page: https://chapbook.ink/examples/nonfiction/

The brief:

> A repeatable method for pricing software: customer interviews, a value metric, tiering, and setting numbers you can defend. Promise: A repeatable method for setting a price you can defend to customers, investors and yourself, validated by ten customer interviews in a week. Reader: A founder who priced by guessing or by copying a competitor and now has to defend or change the number. Voice: Direct second person with occasional first person; worked examples with fictional companies; tables where they clarify; no invented statistics or named studies: reason from mechanics and examples.

The outline the planner proposed:

1. Introduction (620 words)
2. Why Guessing Fails (1,014 words)
3. What You Are Actually Selling (1,004 words)
4. Interview Ten Customers (1,088 words)
5. Choose the Value Metric (979 words)
6. Draft Three Tiers (1,076 words)
7. Set the Numbers (1,130 words)
8. Say the Price Out Loud (1,063 words)
9. Revisit Every Quarter (994 words)
10. Conclusion (384 words)
11. Appendix: The Interview Script (475 words)

## Questions

### Which trim sizes does Chapbook offer for a paperback?

5.5 × 8.5, 6 × 9, 7 × 10 and 8.5 × 11 inches, each a KDP paperback trim. You pick one on the Paperback interior row, and the book is laid out again for it.

### Does a digital PDF have a trim size?

No, because nothing is cut. A digital PDF has a page size. Chapbook starts a nonfiction book on 6 × 9 in and the other kinds on US Letter.

## Sources

- [Amazon KDP, “Set Trim Size, Bleed, and Margins”](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GVBQ3CMEQW3W2VL6)
- [Amazon KDP, “Paperback Printing Cost”](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201834340)