New plugin turns Adobe InDesign into Amazon Kindle publishing tool

Amazon on Friday launched the beta of a new plugin for desktop publishing software InDesign which converts InDesign project files (.indd and .indb) into Amazon Kindle books.

The plugin lets InDesign book and document files keep their font styles, and text and paragraph alignment after being converted to Kindle Format, and allows links, images, tables, and lists (bulleted or numbered) to be embedded as well.

"Our aim is to make it simple, fast and cost-effective for publishers to create Kindle books," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content said in a statement Friday. "The release of Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign is another step toward this goal. We look forward to feedback from publishers on how we can improve and what additional features they'd like to see."

Rather than simply trying to attract consumers to the Kindle platform, Amazon is also trying to attract independent publishers. Last June, Amazon announced a 70% royalty option to entice publishers to use its Digital Text Platform, this plugin is another step forward in that effort.

Amazon hosts the plugin on its Kindle Publishing site, and has versions supporting InDesign CS4 and CS5 on Windows (XP, Vista, 7) and Mac OS X (10.5, 10.6.)