---
title: "Amazon book description HTML formatter for KDP"
description: "Turn a book description into the HTML KDP accepts, counted against the 4,000 character limit with the tags included. Free, nothing uploaded."
source: https://usegalley.com/resources/amazon-book-description-formatter
---
[Home](https://usegalley.com/) [Resources](https://usegalley.com/resources) Amazon description formatter

# Amazon book description formatter

Write the description the way you would write anything. This turns it into the small set of HTML tags KDP actually accepts, and counts the tags against the 4,000 character limit, which is the part most people find out too late.

Your description
Blank line for a new paragraph. `**bold**`, `*italic*`,
`_underline_`, `- list item`, and
`# heading` for the biggest heading KDP allows.

Characters used

0 of 4,000, tags included

- **Words a reader sees**: 0

- **Characters spent on markup**: 0

How it will read on Amazon

HTML to paste into KDP

This runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, and
there is no account to make.

## Which HTML KDP accepts

KDP's description field accepts these tags and no others:

`
`, ``, ``,
``, ``, ``,
`` to ``, ``,
`` and ``.

**Headings start at h4**, because that is the largest KDP
allows. So one hash gives you ``, two gives
`` and three gives ``. It is one
off from Markdown on purpose: mapping a single hash to a heading Amazon
rejects would break the page.

Everything you type is escaped first, so a stray angle bracket in your prose
becomes text rather than a broken tag. Then the markers above are turned into
that tag set. Nothing else can come out of it. Straight
quotes and apostrophes are curled on the way through, and a double hyphen
becomes an en dash.

The limit is 4,000 characters and Amazon counts the markup, so the number
above counts the HTML, not the prose. The second row shows what the tags are
costing you. A description near the limit with heavy formatting is usually
one paragraph away from being cut off mid-sentence on the storefront.

This is the blurb, not the book. Galley holds the
[metadata for a manuscript](https://usegalley.com/docs/publishing) beside it so the
description, the categories and the copyright page live with the thing they
describe.

**For working things out, not for signing anything.** Printers
and retailers set their own rates and specifications, change them without
notice, and none of them is affiliated with me or with Galley.
I checked these figures by hand in August 2026
against [KDP's book description guidance](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201189630).
Confirm on the official page before you commit money to a price, a
print run or a contract.

## Questions

What HTML does Amazon KDP allow in a book description? Line breaks, paragraphs, bold, emphasis, italic, underline, headings from h4 to h6, ordered and unordered lists, and list items. Nothing else. No links, no images, no font tags, no inline styles, no divs. Anything outside that list is either stripped or shown to the reader as raw markup.

How long can an Amazon book description be? 4,000 characters, and the HTML tags count towards it. A heavily formatted description can lose several hundred characters to markup alone, which is why this tool counts both.

Why does my description look like a wall of text? Because you pasted plain text with line breaks in it. Amazon ignores line breaks that are not marked up. You need real paragraph tags, which is the whole job of this tool.

Can I put a link in my book description? No. Amazon strips them, and links out of a product page are against the content guidelines anyway. Put the series order in the text instead.

## Next

[KDP royalty calculatorWhat the listing pays once it is live.](https://usegalley.com/resources/kdp-royalty-calculator) [ISBN checkerThe other field that has to be right.](https://usegalley.com/resources/isbn-checker) [Front and back matterWhat goes inside the file itself.](https://usegalley.com/resources/front-and-back-matter-checklist) [ISBN barcode generatorThe other thing a listing needs to be right.](https://usegalley.com/resources/isbn-barcode-generator)

More at [the resources index](https://usegalley.com/resources).

Put all this into practice when you write your novel in Galley.

[Launch Galley](https://app.usegalley.com)