Vellum software for PC or laptop Archives

We’ve made Vellum a free download so that you can try it out before you make a purchase. After you install Vellum on your computer, you’ll be able to import your manuscript, explore styles, and preview how your book will appear. A purchase is only necessary when you’re ready to publish.

Have questions about purchasing? We’ve collected frequent ones here.

Purchasing

Is there a time limit to using the free download?

No, you can use Vellum for as long as you need. You just won’t be able to Generate files for publishing until you make a purchase.

How do I purchase a license?

The best way to purchase a license is from within Vellum. Start by pressing the Purchase button in the upper-right corner of the window, or by opening the Vellum menu at the top of your screen and selecting Purchases:

Your license is automatically installed after your transaction completes.

Can I purchase a license without using Vellum?

Yes. You can also purchase a license from the web-based Vellum Store. Once you’ve completed your purchase, you can install your license using Vellum’s Restore feature.

What if Vellum doesn’t work for me?

Because Vellum is free to download, you should be able evaluate how Vellum works for your book without making a purchase. But if you do purchase a license and find that Vellum isn’t right for you, you can cancel your purchase within 30 days for a refund. Please contact us if that’s what you decide.

License Limits

Is there a limit to how many books I create?

No! Create as many books as you can write.

Is there a limit to pen names?

Nope!

Can I use my license on a second computer I own?

Yes. You can use Restore to install your license on an additional computer.

Can I use my license to format books for other authors?

Yes. But please keep in mind that we won’t be able to provide support to authors who are not our customers.

Can I share my license with my co-worker or assistant?

No. A license is tied to an individual, and cannot be shared with others.

Is this a yearly subscription or a one-time purchase?

It’s a one-time purchase.

Will I have to pay for updates?

No. Updates to Vellum are free. In the future, we may introduce new, optional functionality available for an additional purchase. But you will not need to pay for updated versions of the software.

Vellum Press

What is the difference between Vellum Ebooks and Vellum Press?

Vellum Ebooks allows you to format your book in ebook form only. With Vellum Press, you can also create a print edition, which you can have printed as a paperback or hardcover.

How much does it cost to print books created with Vellum Press?

Pricing will depend on the print-on-demand service you use, as well as factors like the length of your book and whether it is in color or black & white. As an example, you can refer to the Printing Costs for Amazon’s popular KDP service.

Can I switch from Vellum Ebooks to Vellum Press?

If you change your mind within 30 days of your purchase of Vellum Ebooks, please contact us and we can make an exchange for the difference in price.

After that time, you can upgrade from Vellum Ebooks to Vellum Press for $99.99 USD. To begin, open the Vellum menu, select Purchases, and then press Upgrade.

Ebook Credits

I read that you could pay to format a single book. Where is this option?

Individual ebook credits were discontinued in 2017 and are no longer available.

If you previously purchased ebook credits, you do have the option to upgrade to Vellum Ebooks or Vellum Press. To do that, open the Vellum menu, select Purchases, and then press Upgrade.

System Requirements

What are the system requirements of Vellum?

To use Vellum, you’ll need a Mac running one of these versions of macOS: You will need at least 60 MB free space on your computer to install Vellum. Books that you generate will require additional space.

Can I run Vellum on my iPad?

No. iPads use a different operating system. Vellum can only run a Mac.

Are you creating a Windows version?

At this time, we’re focused on the Mac version of our software, and don’t have plans to develop a version for Windows.

Contact Us

Have a question not answered here? Send us a message.

Related Pages

If you’ve ever found it frustrating to create a beautiful book, you need to read this Vellum software review.

As authors, there’s an almost never-ending list of tasks to complete and things to track. The process of writing, releasing, and marketing a book isn't simple. And formatting your book to look just the way you want, while also meeting the technical requirements of the various ebook platforms, can be time-consuming and tedious.

There are three common options for formatting your finished novel. Some authors have the time and patience to learn the ins and outs of manual formatting. They create their books using Scrivener, MS Word or Adobe InDesign (with plenty of trial and error). Though technically savvy, I'm not the kind of person who wants to spend hours of time learning how to manually format with programs like these.

Other authors decide to outsource formatting to a specialist. Naturally, this costs quite a lot, and you're also stuck going back to the formatting service or person for every change you want to make.

Vellum offers a third option, and it feels like the right one to me. It's an easy to use, premium ebook formatting and layout tool for Mac users.

WARNING: Before we get into it, I want to reiterate that Vellum only works for Macs (not PCs).  The creators have even gone as far as to say that they will NOT be creating a version that works for PC or iOS.  However, PC users can access Vellum software through Mac in Cloud. It's basically a cloud that allows you to access a Mac and use the Vellum software–you'll be charged hourly. So, not only do you need to purchase a Vellum license, but you'll also need to pay for the hourly services as well. Then again, it's much cheaper than buying a Mac…

What Is Vellum?

Vellum is a book formatting tool from 180g, a software company founded by former Pixar employees.

Vellum’s mission is “to create beautiful books.”

By using Vellum, authors can easily create elegant books that can be quickly and simply exported to the required format.

Vellum works incredibly well for all levels of authors. I started using the software even before I hit publish on my first novel several years ago. It's not only a great tool for publishing beautiful books, but it's also useful for sending out digital copies of books to beta readers.

The software has been used by top authors for high-performing projects. For example, James Scott Bell chose Vellum for his gripping thriller Your Son Is Alive, and J.T. Ellison used it to produce the novella box set for her Taylor Jackson series.

Vellum Software Review: Pricing and Requirements

Let me be upfront about this–Vellum isn’t cheap! However, I firmly believe you should see it as a longterm investment that saves you time rather than simply a cost to you.

Vellum is available in three options when it comes to pricing:

• Free. Vellum starts as a free download. You can get hands-on experience with the software and see what it's capable of for free. The only limitation is you can't generate copies of your book in the free version. Which is kind of the whole point! Testing whether its capabilities are right for you before investing a single cent is awesome, though.
• Vellum Ebooks. This is priced at $199.99. It allows for unlimited ebook generation, but no print editions.
• Vellum Press. This edition costs $249.99. It allows for unlimited ebook and print edition generation.
• If you decide to purchase a license to fully test out the product, you can get a refund within 30 days if you're not satisfied

If you're on the fence about spending the money, you should take the time to calculate what buying Vellum will save you in terms of time and money. How many hours would using Vellum save you? How many Fiverr formatting fees would you avoid?

To give you a tangible idea of just how much time you'll save, I've created a “How to Use Vellum to Format Your Books” video. In this video, I'll take you step-by-step through the process of importing your book into Vellum and adding front and back matter. The entire process takes less than 15 minutes.

Now that you know how much Vellum costs and the time it can save you, what are the requirements for using it?

• Mac only. If you’re a Windows user, Vellum isn’t available for you — unless you use MacinCloud.
• Certain Mac editions only. You need to have Mac Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, or Catalina to run the latest versions of Vellum.
• MacOS only. The creators of Vellum at 180g have stated they are not looking to develop an iOS version in the foreseeable future.

If you have a compatible Mac, I’d urge you to check out the free download of Vellum. It’s awesome to play around with. Even if doesn't turn out to be quite right for you, it’s worth comparing it to your current formatting process to find out.

Vellum Software Review: What Can Vellum Do?

Vellum offers a number of intuitive formatting and style options in the following five areas:

1. Ready-Made Professional Styles
2. Create Box Sets for Your Books
3. Add Title and Metadata
4. Easily Create Print Editions
5. Simple Compiling and Uploading of Your Work

Let’s take a look at each.

1. Ready-Made Professional Styles

One of the key benefits of using Vellum is being able to easily create a beautiful book that looks exactly as you intend, whether in print or digital format.

Rather than having to customize every option for your book’s style, Vellum comes with a range of  ‘book styles' which you can quickly select and apply to your book. This makes it easy to choose a style that's appropriate for the tone and content of your book.

You can think of ‘book styles' as a filter for a photograph. By choosing a book style, it alters some of the aesthetic elements of a book in one fell swoop.

This is a huge timesaver.

So what exactly does a Vellum ‘book style' modify, and what are the different styles offered in Vellum? Vellum Book Styles allow you to choose an aesthetic theme for your book, which changes the following aspects:

Headings: Allows you to customize the look of chapter titles in your book.

First Paragraph: If your book makes use of a stylized first paragraph, you can change its appearance here.

Block Quotation: If your book features distinct block quotations, you can ensure their appearance is exactly as you want here.

Ornamental Break: Instead of a boring chapter break icon, you can use any image for your ornamental breaks thanks to a recent Vellum update with the custom image button below.

Paragraph After Break: Choose how you want your paragraph to appear after a break in writing.

Photograph: Impacts how visual content will show up in your book’s format.

Caption: Choose the style of captions for images in your work.

Header and Footer: Customize the visual feel of your book’s headers and footers.

Body: Alter the appearance of your book’s body text.

The ready-made styles offered by Vellum include:

Meridian: A classic and clear style, as seen below.

Trace: Clean and modern with interesting headings.

Artisanal: Interesting aesthetic with retro touches.

Kindred: An attractive and clear book layout.

Sudo: A style with very distinct headings that would work well for grittier fiction genres.

Oxford: A classic aesthetic with traditional heading styles.

Parcel: A modern book layout that feels spacious, as seen below. This is my personal favorite and the one I use for my science fiction mystery novels.

Chroma: Distinctively modern style with attractive colored headings.

Vellum does not constrain you with styles. You can still quickly and easily customize any aspect of your book’s appearance, tweaking the pre-made appearances until they meet your exact requirements.

2. Create Box Sets for Your Books

Box sets are a valuable weapon in your book marketing arsenal.

Whether you're offering several installments in your own series in one package, or teaming up with other authors to offer readers a smorgasbord of stories, box sets are often one of the most effective ways to increase your sales.

Thankfully, Vellum is designed with box sets in mind. So, which features have been included to aid with their creation?

• A special Vellum element known as a ‘volume’ represents each book in the box set. Within the ‘volume’ element, you can see the particular chapters for each book in the set.
• You can easily import existing Vellum files into the box set. You can also add books created outside of Vellum by importing them in the .docx format.
• If the books in the box set have been created by multiple authors, you can quickly and easily use Vellum to give credit where it’s due.

The settings for creating a box set in Vellum can be seen above.

Even if you don’t produce box sets at this time in your author career, you may well wish to in the future. When you do, Vellum will make it a heck of a lot easier. I can't wait to use this feature in the coming year.

3. Add Title and Author Metadata

Books are often collaborative projects.

While some solo authors take a truly DIY approach and handle everything on their own, others make use of a team to produce a book. This might include an editor, cover designer, and even a translator for the international edition.

Vellum makes it easy to create title and contributor data. This impacts both the information shown to the reader, as well as the metadata for their e-reader device.

So what does Vellum offer in terms of contributor information and metadata?

• Automation. By adding information such as the name of the author and the title of the book, Vellum automatically populates aspects such as your title page and any headers — featuring the title that your ‘book style' makes use of.
• Customization. You can define your own terms for things. For example, if you want your chapters to be referred to as ‘sections’ throughout the book, Vellum makes that easy.
• Collaboration. You can quickly and easily give credit where it’s due with Vellum. It comes equipped with the ability to add contributor roles to the metadata, such as illustrators and translators, and you can quickly and easily add different roles if you need to.

I firmly feel that as self-publishing evolves, it will become more of a collaborative field. Vellum is set up to enable you to credit your collaborators in the proper way.

4. Easily Create Print Editions

Print editions of your ebooks can be a valuable additional revenue stream. As an Indie author, I've published three books. Despite being a relatively new author, I make about 30% of my sales from print editions. Sadly, many authors overlook this opportunity due to the perceived difficulty of creating an attractive print book. That's a major misconception.

If you've watched my “How to Use Vellum to Format Your Books” video included above, it takes less than 15 minutes to format the interior of a print book. If you're not doing print versions of your ebooks,  you're leaving money on the table.

If you purchase a Vellum Press license, you can use Vellum to format print editions of your book.

So what does Vellum offer when it comes to print?

• Easily adjust your trim size, font size, and line spacing, to ensure your book is optimized for the printed page. Trim sizes include popular sizes such as 5×8 and 6×9, international sizes, mass-market sizes, and large print books
• Adjust your headers and footers for the print edition.
• Preview and export your print edition in the correct format to easily upload to a print-on-demand service.

The above image shows Vellum's print book capabilities in action, including its clear and useful preview.

The cost of a Vellum license for creating unlimited print books is $50 more than if you opt to create ebooks alone. However, you can probably recoup this cost in terms of the money saved on a professional formatting service, or the hours you'd spend doing it yourself.

5. Simple Compiling and Uploading of Your Work

Vellum calls the export process ‘generating.' This is the stage where you export your design outside of Vellum, into the format required to upload to a particular platform.

Vellum is a free download initially, but the ability to generate books is only available with a purchased license.

So what does Vellum bring to the table in terms of generating your books?

• Store requirements. Different ebook stores have different formatting requirements. If you’ve ever tried to meet these manually, you’ll know just how frustrating it can be. In Vellum, you can easily check a box for every store you’ll be uploading to. Vellum then generates separate folders containing everything needed to upload your book to that store in particular.
• Proofing. Vellum has a dedicated proof mode allowing you to double-check exactly how your book will look for users of each particular ebook platform.
• Epub generation. When you use an aggregator like Draft2Digital or Smashwords, you’ll need a generic epub file. Vellum makes it quick and easy to generate a standardized epub without any particular ebook store’s requirements.

It’s a truly nice touch that Vellum allows you to easily generate books that will work well for users of particular ebook stores. This is a big efficiency booster and timesaver compared to the frustration of manually trying to meet each store’s requirements.

What I Didn't Like About Vellum

Of course, nothing is perfect, including Vellum! So what didn't I like about it?

The premium price point might be off-putting for authors who can't afford to make the initial investment, but the time savings alone would justify biting the bullet on this one. However, I'm not sure there should be separate price points for ebooks and print books. If you watched my video, the software formats an ebook and print book at exactly the same time. I get that if you also offer a print version of your book, you can recoup the additional cost by selling a few copies. However, it's not like the cost of formatting for print is higher than that of ebooks. So why charge the customer more?

The biggest complaint I hear from my fellow authors is that there is no Windows version of Vellum. And there's not even the possibility of hoping for a Windows version in the future — 180g has decided not to do the work. A lot of authors won't be a fan of that.

For me personally, the biggest downside is the limited customization and control. As independent authors, it's no secret that we like having control over our author businesses and brands. Despite its speed and elegance, Vellum only offers eight ‘book styles,' which means the books produced by Vellum users will look mostly the same. There's some ability to customize within styles, but at the end of the day, you're stuck with rather limited formatting options and fonts. Would I trade endless hours of my time tweaking things for unlimited possibilities? Probably not. But that's why I'm a Vellum user.

There are a few other downsides worth mentioning for non-fiction authors. Vellum imports footnotes by converting them to endnotes. That means there is no option to do footnotes. If you're fine with endnotes, it's nothing to lose sleep over. There are also some significant limitations for inserting images into text. I'm planning to create a non-fiction book with many different types of images and need to have greater control over the format. As a result, I will probably use Adobe InDesign for that project.

Vellum Software Review Final Verdict

Overall, Vellum is a premium product that will save authors a ton of time and frustration. It's a turnkey solution that exhibits amazing speed and elegance.

I love the fact that real authors of all types use Vellum for their work. I am a huge fan of the fact that Vellum is updated regularly and new features are added and improved upon to respond to user demand.

The premium price point and lack of Windows compatibility will continue to be a sticking point for some. However, I truly feel that Vellum is an investment that will save authors time and money over the long run.

Have you used Vellum? Do you prefer another option for your ebook formatting and exporting process?

I’d love to hear from you guys in the comments!

Cheers,

Natasha Bajema

P.S. If you're interested in learning more about me and my fiction, please stop by my website or visit my author page on Amazon.

Whenever a fellow writer or client asks me what I use to create ebooks or print editions, my first question is always, “Mac or PC?”

It’s not my intention to raise my elitist, Apple-shaped nose at them. Rather, their response dictates my answer. PC users get the hard answer: “Have you considered switching to a Mac?”

I’m kidding, but only slightly. The comparative ease with which Vellum 2.0, a Mac-only product, creates ebooks and print editions should make all PC authors consider making the switch…or at least befriending one Mac user who’ll let them borrow their computer for an hour.

I may be overselling Vellum, but for my money, which I’ve gladly given them on multiple occasions, they have released an app that marries ease of use with fantastic design — both of the app itself and of the ebooks and print editions it’s capable of creating.

Here’s my review of Vellum software for self-publishers.

Book formatting software and other options

Those who have yet to experience the joy of using Vellum are relegated to choosing from among a few time-consuming or costly processes:

• Hire a professional book designer for both your ebook and print edition layouts, which can cost into the thousands of dollars depending on the intricacy or complexity of your layouts. If you have the money, this is the way to go, especially if you’ve vetted the interior designer. Their experience is worth the expense, but not all writers or self-publishers can afford such costs, and particularly if they plan to release multiple titles.

• Upload a Word document to Kindle Direct Publishing or the affectionately known “meatgrinder” at Smashwords and hope for the best. (And then try not to pull your hair out.)

• Learn the intricacies of Calibre, a powerful piece of ebook software that’s more usable by programmers than authors.

• Learn to lay out your own book in Adobe InDesign, a powerful desktop publishing app that gives you the finest of control over your design. Unfortunately, it also requires dozens of hours to master and a monthly subscription to an app you may only use intermittently.

I’ve tried each of these, whether with my books or those I’ve helped clients create. Each one has its shortcomings, either in too much time wasted seeking design perfection or too much money spent waiting for a designer to finally finish the book.

So I’m going to share a better option with you. Yes, there’s a better way to DIY your self-published book!

While I’d used Vellum to create ebooks before, the release of Vellum 2.0 introduced a game-changing feature: print formatting.

Now, the time and expense I have to invest in creating stellar books are, at the very least, halved.

What is Vellum software?

Vellum is a book-formatting software. You can use it to create beautiful ebooks and print books that you can sell anywhere, including Amazon.

The opening screen of Vellum is straightforward.

I can click on an already existing project or import a Word file. For this review, we’ll be looking at Sins of the Five Fathers, a posthumous mystery novel written by my uncle that I self-published with him.

By clicking on Sins of the Five Fathers, I’m taken to the book creation screen:

Clicking on any item in the left-hand sidebar reveals a new page to edit in the center area. With the book title selected, I can edit the book’s metadata. Clicking on “Ebook Cover” at the top of the center area allows me to drag and drop the ebook’s cover into the book.

When a user incorporates Word’s styles into their manuscript, such as always using the “Title” style in Word for each of the author’s chapter titles, Vellum is smart enough to know to import each of those chapters as separate chapters. Even when Vellum isn’t quite smart enough to figure out every section or chapter, reorganizing and renaming each part, section or chapter is a breeze.

For instance, by clicking on the configuration icon next to a chapter header, I can easily convert the chapter into a number of other predefined chapter types, e.g., Prologue, Epilogue, Afterword, About the Author, etc.

The “Styles” panel in the upper left provides multiple templates for the layout of specific aspects of a book, e.g., Heading, First Paragraph, Block Quotation, etc.

In future releases, I’d like to see more granular control of these aspects and the ability to save customized templates. But, I believe the provided templates provide enough variation to satisfy any author seeking to create a traditionally formatted book.

Adding text features is just as easy. Right-clicking within the text brings up a context-aware menu that allows you to add features like Subheads, Ornamental Breaks, Images, Alignment Blocks (for right-justified, left-justified or centered text) and more.

Lastly, the most powerful aspect of Vellum is its exporting capabilities.

I learned the intricacies (and sometimes maddening nuances) of exporting my first book via Scrivener. By far, Scrivener is still my preferred word processor — this article was written in Scrivener — but its exporting capabilities are almost too powerful. It can be overwhelming and time-consuming for most authors to attempt.

In my opinion, this is where Vellum shines.

By going to the top menu and selecting “File > Generate Books,” I can choose which file types and trim size I’d like to export to. As you can see below, ebook options include Kindle (.mobi), iBooks, Nook, Kobo, Google Play, and Generic EPUB.

For print, Vellum offers a variety of popular trim sizes:

• 5 x 8 inches
• 5.25 x 8 inches
• 5.5 x 8.5 inches
• 6 x 9 inches
• 5.06 x 7.81 inches
• 5.5 x 8.25 inches 

They offer additional trim sizes for international books, mass market paperbacks and large print.

The proof of any ebook formatting software is in, well, the proof. Here are a few images of the Createspace print edition proof of Sins of the Five Fathers:

What about Vellum for windows?

Unfortunately, the company only makes Vellum for Mac; there’s no PC version.

If you’re looking for a Vellum equivalent for windows, you might consider Scrivener.

While I prefer the ease of Vellum for book formatting, Scrivener provides a similar service, as well as many more features.

How much does Vellum cost?

Vellum software is an investment.

It costs $199.99 to create unlimited ebooks or $249.99 to create unlimited ebooks and paperbacks.

But it’s worth the cost, especially if you’re planning to write, format and publish multiple books over your writing career. Compare this to the options I offered at the start of this post, and you can see why it’s worth considering!

Of course, more features abound, but what I’ve shared in this brief review are the features I’ve used the most. I’ve been quite pleased with Vellum, and it’s now become an integral part of my publishing process.

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This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.