# Reflowable vs fixed layout

> Source: https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/reflowable-vs-fixed-layout

Last updated: 2026-09-06
Category: Audio, ebook & formats
Also called: Reflowable ebook · Fixed-layout ebook (FXL)

A reflowable ebook repaginates to the reader’s screen and font size; a fixed-layout ebook locks each page’s design, as picture books and comics need.

## Definition

Ebooks come in two kinds. **Reflowable** text behaves like a web page: the reader's app chooses the type size, margins and screen, and the words flow to fit, so there are no fixed pages and "page 112" means nothing. This is right for novels, memoirs and most nonfiction — anything that is prose — and it is what EPUB does by default.

**Fixed layout** freezes the page. Each screen is a designed page with text and images in exact positions, and the reader zooms rather than resizes. It exists for **picture books**, comics and graphic novels, illustrated cookbooks and highly designed nonfiction, where the relationship between a picture and its words *is* the content.

The costs of fixed layout are real: small phones show a whole page as a postage stamp, text cannot be enlarged for accessibility, and each store has its own fixed-layout flavour (Apple and Kobo EPUB FXL, Kindle's KPF). Use it only when the design cannot survive reflow.

## Related

- [EPUB](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/epub)
- [Typesetting](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/typesetting)
- [Board book](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/board-book)
- [Print-ready PDF (PDF/X)](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary/print-ready-pdf)
- [Turn a PDF Into an Ebook](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/tools/pdf-to-ebook)
- [Children's Picture Book Maker](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/formats/childrens-picture-book-maker)
- [Book Publishing Glossary — 59 Terms Defined](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/glossary)
- [Bindery — the Claude-powered book studio](https://www.infinitelibrary.ai/bindery)

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