Word to EPUB

Word to EPUB converter: publish your DOCX as an ebook

To convert Word to EPUB, drop the .docx file in the box and download an EPUB. Headings set with Word's Heading styles become chapters, and italics, lists, tables, pictures and footnotes come across.

Convert a Word to EPUB

No sign-up
Deleted within an hour
Opens in any reading app

Free: 10 files a day. Only convert books you have the right to convert. DRM-protected books, such as most store-bought Kindle books, can't be converted.

frankenstein_sample.epub epubwise

<td>Letter</td><td>Written at</td><td>Date</td>

<th>Letter</th>
<th>Written at</th>
<th>Date</th>

RSC-005 index_split_006.html(27,143): Error whileparsing file: attribute "role" not allowed here;expected attribute "accesskey", "charset", "coords","dir", "hreflang", "lang", "rel", "rev", "shape","style", "tabindex", "target", "type" or "xml:lang"Messages: 0 fatals / 3 errors / 0 warnings / 0 infos

No errors or warnings detected.

A sample Word file with a table and footnotes, and each EPUB's markup for the table's top row. It looks the same on the page; the header row is what a screen reader needs. Then EPUBCheck, the official validator, in its own words.

Who this is for

Authors sending an advance copy to readers, teachers turning a handout into something students can read on a phone, and anyone who wrote a long document in Word and wants it to read like a book. An EPUB reflows on every screen, so nobody has to pinch and zoom a page designed for paper.

Preparing the Word file

Use Heading styles
Mark chapter titles with Heading 1 (and sections with Heading 2). Those become the ebook's contents list.
Page breaks
A page break before each chapter starts it on a new screen.
Save as .docx
The older .doc format isn't supported; use File, Save As, Word Document.

How it compares: 7 Word to EPUB converters tested

Tested 4 and 5 November 2026. One Word file, made in Microsoft Word from the opening of Frankenstein (public domain), about 9,700 words with two levels of headings, italics, bold, lists, a table with a header row, footnotes, a picture with a caption and a web link, went through each converter's free tier with default settings and no account. One script measured every EPUB the same way, and EPUBCheck, the official validator, checked each one.

Converter	Text kept	Headings, italics, lists, notes, picture, link	Table header row	Cover	EPUBCheck errors	Format
epubwise Calibre 9.17, plus our clean-up	100%	all	kept	yes	0	EPUB 3
Calibre (default settings) Calibre 9.13, the desktop program	100%	all	lost	yes	3	EPUB 2
AnyConv Calibre 4.3	100%	all	lost	yes	0	EPUB 2
CloudConvert Calibre 8.5	100%	all	lost	no	3	EPUB 2
Convertio Calibre 4.99.5	100%	all	lost	no	0	EPUB 2
FreeConvert Calibre 9.13	100%	all	lost	no	3	EPUB 2
online-convert.com Calibre 9.15	100%	all	lost	no	3	EPUB 2

What the numbers say. All seven run Calibre, which reads a well-made Word file very well, so most of this is a tie. One thing differs. When a table's top row is marked as its header in Word, the others turn it into ordinary cells, so a screen reader or reading app can't tell it from the data. epubwise keeps it a real header row, looking the same. Four of the others also fail EPUBCheck on the footnotes, because Calibre writes EPUB 3 markup into an EPUB 2 file.

Where others did better: CloudConvert, Convertio, FreeConvert and online-convert.com make a smaller file (174 KB against our 211 KB), because they add no cover. Ours is EPUB 3, the others EPUB 2.

Good to know

Text boxes, columns and exact page positions are print ideas and don't carry over to a reflowable book. Password-protected documents can't be converted. Got a PDF of the document instead? Convert the PDF to EPUB with our own layout engine. For plain text files there is TXT to EPUB. This conversion runs on Calibre, the free ebook program, on our server, and your file is deleted within an hour.

Questions

Can I convert a .doc file?

Only .docx. Open the .doc in Word or another word processor and save it as a Word Document (.docx) first.

Why don't my chapters show in the contents?

Chapters come from Word's Heading styles. Text that is only made bigger or bold isn't a heading; apply Heading 1 to each chapter title and convert again.

Can I publish the EPUB on stores?

The EPUB is yours to use. Stores have their own checks, so test the file in their previewer before uploading.

Microsoft Word is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. epubwise is not affiliated with Microsoft.