I have a subscription to Microsoft 365 because I thought I’d use it for creating and submitting my writing, but I really use Google Docs most of the time out of convenience. When I finished compiling my latest book, I exported my doc and imported in Word. What a disappointment!

I mainly did it to generate a table of contents and export the book as an epub for KDP publishing. I’ve been using Word for about 30 years, so I’m pretty adept at handling any issues that come up. However, the 365 online version does have some glitches that the install app doesn’t. I downloaded my file and planned to work on it right on my MacBook.

The files had issues every time. I played with it for hours, because I MUST solve these puzzles and have a hard time giving it. So I googled the issues, and I tried multiple times to download the file and start over. The lag in just scrolling the 300+ pages in the online editing was maddening – and my new internet up here is pretty high speed. The files that took forever to download then all had issues of one type or another.

Mind you, I had edited the file alot while using Word, so I really didn’t want to start over in Google Docs. So I uploaded it and… it wouldn’t open. Sigh.

I made all the edits in the original Google doc and quit the Word idea. That’s when I discovered that making a table of contents in Docs was just as simple. The file didn’t lag when I scrolled, and it exported as a perfectly fine epub, so why am I even messing with Word at all? And paying for it!

I did research a bit to make sure that if I bypassed Word, this would format would still work well with KDP. I came across a really nice how-to video that I thought I’d share. I know most of this content from using Docs for years, but there were a few helpful tips that refreshed my foggy memory. Anyway, if you need any help formatting your Google Doc for creating a Kindle book, check out “How to University.”

Oh, and here’s my great looking TOC.