Many of you may not know that you don't have to unzip our files in order to view them. In addition, you may be missing out on a great way to view the comics on your Kindle, Nook or iPad.
Many comics today are offered in CBZ and CBR format. This is a file extension, just like DOC, TXT, PDF, JPEG and others are file extensions. The purpose of the extension is to tell your device what program to use to open it.
CBZ and CBR formats are intended to be opened by a Comic Book Reader. These files are really ZIP and RAR files, with their file extension changed so the device knows to open them with a comic book reader instead of trying to extract them from the archive. It's not necessary - the comic book reader knows to show you the files without extracting.
To view our comics from their ZIP state, we recommend CDisplay. It has been around for a long time, is virus-free, and works great for viewing compressed ZIP and RAR files. You can download it here:
http://www.cdisplay.me/
For android devices (Kindle, Nook, and others) our preference is Perfect Viewer, a free app you can find on Google Play, or the Kindle or Nook App store. You can also find the Perfect Viewer apk file by doing a Google search, but look to make sure it is from a trusted source.
If you don't already own a tablet, right now (9-21-19) Amazon.com is selling the 7" Kindle (with ads) for less than $30 - that's $20 off the regular price. Want bigger? The 8" is only $49. Super-size? the 10" is $149. These new Kindles accept the small SD cards, so you can easily transfer files to the Kindle, and it's a great way to keep a second copy available. Most of our files are less than 12 MB, so a 32 GB micro SD card (about $10, thank you Amazon) will hold over 2,500 comics... we don't even HAVE that many!
So you may ask, "Okay, I have a tablet or I want to buy one. How do I view the library I already have?"
The answer is simple, but you will have to do a little work. By default, a PC doesn't show you the file extension of documents and programs, but the PC knows what they are. If you don't see the .zip at the end of your file (Like "BattleOfTheSusies.zip") then you'll need to Google "change file extension" to find the best method for your operating system. Here is one source that covers a few common OS:
https://www.howtohaven.com/system/show-file-extensions-in-windows-explorer.shtml
Until you get the hang of it, it's best to work on a copy of the file. Select the file, and either hit F2 or right-click, and on the pop-up menu you'll find "Rename." Select that. Change .zip to .cbz. Transfer the file to your Kindle or Nook, and you can open it with Perfect Viewer.
On the PC you don't have to change the file extension if you don't want to. Just right-click on the file, select "Open With" and choose CDisplay if available, or browse for where you have installed it on your computer.
To get you started though, here are twelve, screen-sized images, each the title page of some of our comics by ZBM. It is in CBZ format, all ready for you to test with CDisplay on your PC or Perfect Viewer on your Kindle, Nook, or other Android device. For the iPad, search your App Store for a good comic book viewer.
12 Images, 1024 x 768 Pixels
Delivered in 4 MB CBZ file
Enjoy!
English (UK)
