Disclosure. We make the alternative this page is about.
Draft2Digital is a distributor, and its formatter comes with that service. You upload a .docx, pick a layout, and get back an EPUB and a print-ready PDF set by their template.
What to check in a template's output
A template lays out every book the same way, so check the result closely if your manuscript is unusual. Examples are footnotes that must stay on their page, headings numbered four levels deep, tables that break across pages, or a language with capitalization rules other than English.
These questions decide whether a file is accepted and how it reads, and each one can be measured:
- Is the inside margin wide enough at this page count? The minimum changes as the book gets longer.
- How many widows, orphans and short last lines are in the finished PDF?
- Does the EPUB pass EPUBCheck with no errors and no warnings?
- Does it carry the accessibility metadata the EU has required since June 2025, and are those claims true of the file?
If you already have a Draft2Digital file, run it through the PDF checker and the EPUB accessibility checker.
What Torcul does instead
It produces the same two files, then reads them back:
- The inside margin is settled by laying the book out, counting the real pages, and repeating until the two agree.
- The finished PDF is read again and its layout faults counted.
- The EPUB is validated with EPUBCheck itself.
Every result carries the date the rules were verified, and anything that cannot be checked is reported as unchecked.
Before anything is laid out, you see how the manuscript was read: every heading with its evidence, and a chance to correct it. That screen reads your own .docx in your browser.
A cover, if you want one, is sized from the finished interior. You see every page of the finished book, with its measurements, before you pay.
If you already distribute through them
Draft2Digital also accepts an EPUB and a print interior made elsewhere: make the files here and upload them there. Torcul is not a distributor.