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Convert cbr and cbz comic books to save space

Digital comic books are often provided as simple archives in the formats cbz, cbr or cbt to name a few which include all the pages of the comics as images.

That's why it is possible to open these files in compression software like 7-Zip to access individual images or extract them all.

The images that are included in a comic book archive may have different resolutions and quality levels usually ranging from a width of 1024 to 1920.

That's also one of the main reason why the size may differ a lot. While that may not be a problem on the desktop computer, it may very well be one if you want to read comic books on your smartphone or tablet.

Cbx converter is a free program for Windows that provides a solution for some users. The program has been designed to convert any support comic book format into one that uses webp images instead of the image type used originally.

You can add one or multiple comic book files into the program interface after start. Either drag and drop them into the interface or use the File > Add source menu to do so.

reduce size of comic books

Each comic is listed with its name, size, number of images, the width of the images and its average size to Kilobyte ratio automatically.

You can hit the start conversion button right away to convert the images in each comic book to webp or select to resize the images of some or all files as well to reduce the space even more.

A quick test run with six comic books sized between 15 to 18 Megabyte reduced the size of each to about 6 Megabyte. That's without doubt a great reduction especially since it does not seem to impact the quality of the resulting images too much.

Options are provided to resize comic book images as well. This is done with a right-click on a book and the selection of the resize option. This can reduce the size of the image even further.

There is also an option to change the default parameters of the conversion process in the preferences, for instance to change the desired quality level.

You should make sure however that your comic book reader supports the cbz format. The program could use a couple of usability enhancements, like previews of the resulting image quality or information on the conversion process itself to see how much storage you saved by the conversion.

Closing Words

Cbx Converter can be a handy tool if you want to reduce the size of digital comic books and use a reader that supports wepb images.

It is easy enough to use and can batch process lists of comic books in one go.

This article was first seen on ComTek's "TekBits" Technology News

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