CBR to PDF Converter
A CBR is a RAR archive full of page images that only comic readers know how to open. Turn it into a PDF and the issue opens in any browser, on a phone or in Apple Books, with every page in order.
E-book Converter
or drop EPUB, MOBI, AZW … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
0 keeps the book's own size. E-readers let the reader change size anyway; this mainly matters for PDF, DOCX and TXT output.
Space around the text on each page. 5 mm suits e-ink screens; use 15–20 mm for a PDF you plan to print.
Justified text has straight edges on both sides like a printed book; left-aligned avoids wide gaps between words on small screens.
A5 is close to a paperback and reads well on tablets. Match device sizes the page to the reading device chosen above.
Keep the book's cover, use the first image as the cover (comics and photo books), or leave the book without one.
JPEG quality for pictures and comic pages. 85 looks identical on e-ink; lower it to shrink large comics.
Leave empty to keep the title stored in the file. This is the name shown in the reader's library.
Leave empty to keep the existing author.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the CBR
Add up to 20 .cbr files of up to 95 MB each; .cbz and .cb7 archives work the same way. Every archive becomes its own PDF.
- 2
Check page and image settings
Page margins are 0 so the art fills each page, Cover uses the first image, and Image quality is 90. Lower the quality under Advanced settings to make a big issue smaller.
- 3
Convert to PDF
Press Convert to PDF and download. The archives and PDFs are deleted from our server after 30 minutes.
Comic archives are simple inside: numbered JPEG or PNG pages in a RAR file renamed to .cbr. The PDF keeps those images as they are and puts one on each page, in the same order, so a converted issue reads like the original.
What is inside a CBR comic book file
The CB family of extensions was popularized around the turn of the millennium by CDisplay, a Windows comic reader that opened an archive and showed its images in name order. The last letter says which archive sits underneath: CBR is RAR, CBZ is ZIP, CB7 is 7z, and CBT is TAR. There is no index of pages, no reading direction and no text layer; the file name order is the book.
RAR's role is a historical accident. Scan groups in the early 2000s used WinRAR because it compressed slightly better and could split archives, so a large share of older digital comics are CBR. The catch is that RAR is proprietary, and most phones, browsers and e-book apps cannot open it without an extra app.
A PDF solves that without touching the art. Each page image is placed on its own PDF page in sequence, the first image becomes the cover, and the result opens in Chrome, Edge, Safari, Apple Books, Google Play Books and Adobe Acrobat. With Page margins at 0, nothing frames the art.
Image quality for a comic PDF
- 30
Smallest file; visible blocks around line art and lettering.
- 60
Fine for a quick read on a phone.
- 85
Looks the same as the source on most screens.
- 100
Largest file; only for archiving high-resolution scans.
CBR
Comic Book RAR archive
CBR is a RAR archive containing a comic's pages as numbered image files. It works like CBZ but uses RAR compression, which requires proprietary software to create. Most comic readers open CBR, but general tools, e-readers and PDF viewers usually cannot. Many collections are being converted to CBZ or PDF for wider compatibility.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- –
Portable Document Format
PDF was created by Adobe in 1993 and became the open ISO 32000 standard in 2008. It fixes text, fonts, images and layout so a document looks the same on every screen and printer. PDFs can contain forms, signatures, links, attachments and searchable text, and the PDF/A variant is used for long-term archiving. The fixed layout makes PDFs hard to edit, and scanned PDFs contain only images unless OCR is applied. Every browser and operating system can open them.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- No
- Introduced
- 1993 · Adobe
People convert CBR to PDF because almost nothing outside dedicated comic readers opens a RAR archive of page images, while a PDF opens in every browser, phone and e-book app.
Getting a clean CBR to PDF conversion
Check the page names
Zero-padded numbers keep pages in order. Credits or scanner notes named zz_ will land at the end, which is usually what you want.
Pick a page size
A4 suits most US and European comic pages. Choose Match device screen with Reading device set to Tablet for iPad reading.
Decide on grayscale
Turn on Grayscale images only for manga or black-and-white comics read on e-ink; color art loses too much.
CBR to PDF questions
Do I need WinRAR or 7-Zip to convert a CBR?
No. The archive is opened on our server, so nothing needs to be installed on your computer or phone. That matters because RAR is a proprietary format: free tools can extract it, but creating RAR archives requires WinRAR.
Why are the pages of my comic out of order in the PDF?
Pages are taken in file-name order, and names like 1.jpg, 2.jpg, 10.jpg can sort as 1, 10, 2 in some archives. Rename the images with leading zeros (001.jpg, 002.jpg) and repack the archive, or unpack it with our RAR to ZIP converter to fix the names first.
My CBR says it is not a RAR file. What is wrong?
Many files sold or shared as .cbr are really ZIP archives with the wrong extension, and some are 7z. The converter checks the content rather than the extension, so it reads them anyway. If it still fails, the archive was cut short during download.
How do I combine several issues into one volume PDF?
Convert each CBR separately so every issue keeps its own page order, then join the PDFs in the right sequence with Merge PDF. Converting them together would mix pages from different issues by file name.
Will double-page spreads stay together?
A spread stored as one wide image stays one wide page in the PDF, scaled to fit the page width. A spread split into two images becomes two facing pages; turn on two-page view in your PDF reader to see them side by side.
Can I read the PDF on a Kindle?
Send to Kindle accepts PDF but not CBR, so the conversion is what makes an issue sendable. On a 6-inch screen a full comic page is small; the Kindle Scribe or a tablet shows it at a readable size.
| CBZ to PDF | PDF to CBZ | RAR to ZIP |
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