Vellum vs typesetting.ai
A Mac-only book formatting application, long regarded as the reference for typographic quality in self-publishing.
The short answer
If you have a Mac and typography matters to you, Vellum is the better book-design tool and it is not close. If you have a Windows machine, one book, a deadline, or a manuscript that needs its structure recovered before anything can be designed, we are the better tool for that job. The two are not really rivals: Vellum is where a book goes to be designed; this is where a manuscript goes to become a correct file.
Facts about Vellum are from its own site, read September 2026. We are not affiliated with it, and if its page has changed since, it is right and we are wrong.
Where each is better
Choose Vellum when
- You own a Mac and want the finest-looking interior you can get without hiring a designer. On design quality, Vellum sets the bar.
- You need PDF/X-1a — the print-industry interchange format some printers beyond KDP ask for. We produce a standard PDF.
- You need an accessible EPUB with a formal ACE check. We build accessibility metadata into the package; Vellum goes further.
- You will publish several books and want to own the tool.
- Your print interior has images.
Choose typesetting.ai when
- You are not on a Mac. Vellum does not run on Windows, Linux or a phone; we run wherever there is a browser.
- You have one book and $5, not $249.99.
- The manuscript is messy. Vellum expects reasonably clean input; we read structure out of hand-styled files.
- You are submitting to agents and need standard manuscript format. Vellum is a publishing tool, not a submission one.
- You write poetry.
Side by side
The same eleven questions, asked of both
| Vellum | typesetting.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $199.99 for ebooks, $249.99 for ebooks and paperbacks. One-time, plus tax. | Free to format and read the result. $5 to unlock one file, once. $12 a month for everything. |
| Runs on | macOS 13 or newer. “Only Available for Mac.” | Any browser. Nothing to install. |
| Book design control | Full, and the best-regarded in the field. Styles, ornaments, drop caps, image handling, per-element control. | Deliberately little. Type, spacing, chapter openings and scene-break marker, changed in plain English. No themes, no drag-and-drop layout. |
| Automation | Strong defaults; you choose styles and it applies them consistently. | Reads the manuscript's structure — chapters, scene breaks, headings styled by hand — and applies a publishing standard to it. The structure step uses AI; every measurement is arithmetic. |
| EPUB output | EPUB 3 and EPUB 2, validated. MOBI for advance reader copies. ACE-approved accessible output. | EPUB 3, with a real navigation document and metadata, run through EPUBCheck before download. EPUB 2 on request. |
| Print output | Professional-grade PDF/X-1a, the print-industry interchange standard. | Paperback interior PDF at all 16 KDP trim sizes, mirrored margins, gutter sized to the measured page count. Text only — no images in the interior, no bleed, no hardcover. |
| Poetry | Not a stated feature on its page. | A dedicated formatter that preserves line breaks, indentation and stanza spacing across PDF, EPUB and DOCX. |
| Amazon KDP | EPUB and PDF that KDP accepts; it targets Kindle, Kobo and Apple Books by name. | Kindle EPUB plus a structured DOCX; paperback interior to KDP's trim, margin and page-count rules; a requirements checker against Amazon's published limits. |
| Learning curve | Low for what it does. It is a native app designed to be pleasant. | None to speak of. Upload a .docx, read the result, ask for changes in a sentence. |
| Manual customisation | Extensive, within its style system. | Limited by design. If you want to move things by hand, this is the wrong tool. |
| Best for | Mac-owning authors who care about typography and will publish more than one book. | Authors with a finished Word manuscript who want the correct publishing file quickly, without learning a layout program — and anyone with a messy file that other tools choke on. |
What this page does not say
The honest limits
We have not used Vellum on your book, and we do not know your book. Everything above about Vellum comes from what it says about itself; everything about us comes from what the tool actually does, which you can test free before deciding anything.
And the things we cannot do are the same regardless of what Vellumcan: no images in a print interior, no fixed-layout books, no footnotes or indexes, no hardcover. If your book needs those, that decides it, and this page is not the one to read.
Checked against the source
The requirements on this page are published by the organisation below, not by us. We last read it in September 2026 and compared it against what the tool produces. If a requirement has changed since, the source is right and we are wrong — tell us and we will fix it.
- Vellum — Vellum — pricing and requirements·September 2026
Questions
Vellum and typesetting.ai, answered
Is there a Vellum alternative for Windows?
Vellum itself is Mac-only. Atticus and this site both run on Windows, via a browser; which suits you depends on whether you want to design the interior (Atticus) or get a correct file from a manuscript (here).
Is typesetting.ai's PDF the same as Vellum's PDF/X-1a?
No. PDF/X-1a is a stricter print-industry profile. KDP accepts an ordinary PDF with embedded fonts, which is what we produce and what KDP prints from; if your printer specifically asks for PDF/X-1a, Vellum has it and we do not.
Can I use both?
Yes, and some authors do: this for the agent manuscript and a quick first edition, Vellum once the book is settled and they want to design it.
Where next
Try the thing being compared
Publishing on Amazon?
Making the file?
Comparing something else?
The cheapest way to settle it is to try this one: upload a chapter and read the result before paying anything. All the formatters.