If you're choosing a program to set your finished manuscript as a book, start with the facts each maker publishes about itself. The tables below give four of them side by side: the price, what one payment covers, where each runs and which files it makes.
Price and platforms
| Tool | Price | One payment covers | Runs on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Torcul | $29 | One book | A browser, on any computer; nothing to install |
| Vellum | $199.99 / $249.99 | Unlimited books; the higher price adds print | macOS 13 or newer, installed |
| Atticus | $147 | Unlimited books | Windows, macOS, Linux and Chromebook, in a browser or installed |
| Lacuna | $149 / $239 / $339 | Unlimited books, on one, two or three computers | Windows 10 or newer, macOS 12 or newer and Linux, installed |
Each price is a single payment, with no subscription. The difference is in what it buys: a program you keep for every book, or, with us, one book.
Files and covers
| Tool | Files it makes | Cover |
|---|---|---|
| Torcul | Print PDF and EPUB | The full cover, if you want one, sized from the finished interior |
| Vellum | Ebook files; a print PDF with Vellum Press | None: the print cover is a separate file, uploaded to the print service |
| Atticus | EPUB, PDF and DOCX | None: it has no tools for making covers |
| Lacuna | Print PDF and EPUB | None: covers are made outside it |
What we do differently
- A licence for a book. Its key opens that book in any browser, so there's no computer to activate, and nothing to move when you change computers.
- The cover from the interior. The spine width follows the final page count and the paper, so we make the full cover after the pages are set.
- The margin from the page count. KDP's minimum inside margin grows with the page count, and we fit the margin to the page count your book ends with.
- Checked files. We check the print files against KDP's published requirements, count layout faults in the finished PDF and check the EPUB with EPUBCheck, the checker the ebook stores use.
We also do less. Torcul has three interior designs and nowhere to write, and it sets the manuscript you give it.
Moving a book over
Each program's own page shows where to start: from Vellum, from Atticus and from Lacuna. You can see how we read a Word file in your browser, without uploading anything.
Sources
- Vellum: vellum.pub, the Purchasing FAQ at help.vellum.pub and the print cover answer at faq.vellum.pub, read on 3 November 2026.
- Atticus: atticus.io and its help center's answer on creating a cover, read on 3 November 2026.
- Lacuna: the pricing page and its questions at lacuna.pub, read on 3 November 2026; the prices read again on 9 November 2026.
- Torcul: Pricing, the product page and the terms.