How to view Comic Book Zip (CBZ) files

We have started to offer for download some of our old newspapers and magazines as Comic Book Zip files (CBZ files).
A CBZ files is really just standard ZIP archive containing a sequence of images but the difference is that a CBZ file can be opened by some e-book reader software as if it were an electronic book in the same way as you would view a PDF file or EPUB file. We noticed that our site stats show a number of people downloading the old magazines and newspaper do so on iPads and other tablets and this CBZ file format is more suitable to viewing on those devices.

Below is some of the apps available for different operating systems that can view the CBZ files natively. If you do not have one of these apps available or you would prefer to extract all the images from the Comic Book Zip then you can open CBZ files as a standard ZIP file in archive programs by renaming the file. Change the .cbz file extention to .zip and then they will open in your favourite program such as Winzip and you will be able to extract the individual JPEG images.

Windows

  • Calibre can view and convert to different formats.
  • CDisplay was the first application to support the CBR format.
  • CDisplayEx inspired by CDisplay with additional viewing features.
  • ComicRack is a full featured comic reader that supports cbz/zip/cbr/rar/cbt/tar/cb7/7z/pdf/djvu formats.
  • Comic Seer (Desktop) is a comic book archive viewer and organizer for the desktop.
  • Cover is an UWP app which support CBZ/ZIP, CBR/RAR, 7Z/CB7, CBT, PDF, EPUB
  • Gonvisor is a comic reader simple to use with some features to improve image quality.
  • MComix is a fork of Comix.
  • STDU Viewer
  • SumatraPDF

Mac

  • Calibre can view and convert to different formats.
  • Simple Comic, an open source comic viewer with many features including archive reading support.

iOS

  • Chunky Comic Reader, an iPad only app that handles CBZs, CBRs, CBTs, EPUBs, and PDFs. It will also support any contained CBI/ComicbookLover or ComicRack information.
  • ComicFlow is a free comic viewer app that supports .cbr, .cbz and pdf files.
  • Comic Landscape is a paid comic viewer app that supports .cbr, .cbz, .zip, .rar and .pdf files that specializes in displaying images in landscape mode (in addition to portrait mode)
  • Comic Glass, a paid comic viewer app can read comic book archives as well as PDFs.
  • Comic Viewer, a paid app that supports, .cbr, .cbz, .rar, and .zip files.
  • Comic Zeal handles CBZs, CBRs and PDFs.
  • iComics, a paid iPad and iPhone app that handles CBZs, CBRs, CBTs, EPUBs, and PDFs.
  • Manga Storm CBR, a free comic/manga viewer app for iOS that supports comic book archives, EPUBs, and PDFs. Also supports importing content directly from various cloud services and contains many useful features.
  • YACReader supports ZIP, RAR, CBZ, CBR and PDF files. It also support several cloud services and can browse, remotely read and import from Macs/PCs using YACReaderLibrary.

Android

  • FBReader supports CBZ/CBR files on android with the comic book plugin available from the website.
  • Perfect viewer
  • Comic time reader
  • Astonishing comic reader 

Unix / Linux

  • Calibre can view and convert to different formats.
  • Comic Seer (Desktop) is a comic book archive viewer and organizer for the desktop.
  • Comix is a full featured comic book viewer and organizer.
  • Evince document viewer, includes support for the format.
  • MComix is a fork of Comix.
  • Okular can view many formats, including PDF and CBR, and is included in the KDE Software Compilation.
  • MuPDF is a cross-platform lightweight PDF, XPS, and E-book viewer.
This is not a complete list of software that can open comic book zip files, you may find other software to view the CBZ files that better fits your requirement by doing an internet search or looking at your devices app store.


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