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CBconvert

Introduction

CBconvert is a Comic Book converter.

It can convert comics to different formats to fit your various devices.

screenshot

See more screenshots.

Features

  • reads CBR (RAR), CBZ (ZIP), CB7 (7Z), CBT (TAR), PDF, XPS, EPUB, MOBI and plain directory
  • saves processed files in ZIP archive format or TAR
  • images can be converted to JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WEBP, AVIF, JXL, or 4-Bit BMP (16 colors) image format
  • rotate, adjust brightness/contrast, adjust levels (Photoshop-like) or grayscale images
  • resize filters (NearestNeighbor, Box, Linear, MitchellNetravali, CatmullRom, Gaussian, Lanczos)
  • export covers from comics
  • create thumbnails from covers by FreeDesktop specification

Download

flathub

Using cbconvert in file managers to generate FreeDesktop thumbnails

Copy cbconvert cli binary to your PATH and create file ~/.local/share/thumbnailers/cbconvert.thumbnailer:

[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=cbconvert
Exec=cbconvert thumbnail --quiet --width %s --outfile %o %i
MimeType=application/pdf;application/x-cb7;application/x-cbt;application/epub+zip;application/vnd.comicbook-rar;application/vnd.comicbook+zip;application/x-mobipocket-ebook;application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument;

This is what it looks like in the PCManFM file manager:

thumbnails

Using command line app

    Usage: cbconvert <command> [<flags>] [file1 dir1 ... fileOrDirN]


    Commands:

      convert
            Convert archive or document

        --width
            Image width (default "0")
        --height
            Image height (default "0")
        --fit
            Best fit for required width and height (default "false")
        --format
            Image format, valid values are jpeg, png, tiff, bmp, webp, avif, jxl (default "jpeg")
        --archive
    	    Archive format, valid values are zip, tar (default "zip")
        --quality
            Image quality (default "75")
        --filter
            0=NearestNeighbor, 1=Box, 2=Linear, 3=MitchellNetravali, 4=CatmullRom, 6=Gaussian, 7=Lanczos (default "2")
        --no-cover
            Do not convert the cover image (default "false")
        --no-rgb
            Do not convert images that have RGB colorspace (default "false")
        --no-nonimage
            Remove non-image files from the archive (default "false")
        --no-convert
    	    Do not transform or convert images (default "false")
        --grayscale
            Convert images to grayscale (monochromatic) (default "false")
        --rotate
            Rotate images, valid values are 0, 90, 180, 270 (default "0")
        --brightness
            Adjust the brightness of the images, must be in the range (-100, 100) (default "0")
        --contrast
            Adjust the contrast of the images, must be in the range (-100, 100) (default "0")
        --suffix
            Add suffix to file basename (default "")
        --levels-inmin
            Shadow input value (default "0")
        --levels-gamma
            Midpoint/Gamma (default "1")
        --levels-inmax
            Highlight input value (default "255")
        --levels-outmin
            Shadow output value (default "0")
        --levels-outmax
            Highlight output value (default "255")
        --outdir
            Output directory (default ".")
        --size
            Process only files larger than size (in MB) (default "0")
        --recursive
            Process subdirectories recursively (default "false")
        --quiet
            Hide console output (default "false")

      cover
            Extract cover

        --width
            Image width (default "0")
        --height
            Image height (default "0")
        --fit
            Best fit for required width and height (default "false")
        --format
            Image format, valid values are jpeg, png, tiff, bmp, webp, avif, jxl (default "jpeg")
        --quality
            Image quality (default "75")
        --filter
            0=NearestNeighbor, 1=Box, 2=Linear, 3=MitchellNetravali, 4=CatmullRom, 6=Gaussian, 7=Lanczos (default "2")
        --outdir
            Output directory (default ".")
        --size
            Process only files larger than size (in MB) (default "0")
        --recursive
            Process subdirectories recursively (default "false")
        --quiet
            Hide console output (default "false")

      thumbnail
            Extract cover thumbnail (freedesktop spec.)

        --width
            Image width (default "0")
        --height
            Image height (default "0")
        --fit
            Best fit for required width and height (default "false")
        --filter
            0=NearestNeighbor, 1=Box, 2=Linear, 3=MitchellNetravali, 4=CatmullRom, 6=Gaussian, 7=Lanczos (default "2")
        --outdir
            Output directory (default ".")
        --outfile
            Output file (default "")
        --size
            Process only files larger than size (in MB) (default "0")
        --recursive
            Process subdirectories recursively (default "false")
        --quiet
            Hide console output (default "false")

      meta
            CBZ metadata

        --cover
            Print cover name (default "false")
        --comment
            Print zip comment (default "false")
        --comment-body
            Set zip comment (default "")
        --file-add
            Add file to archive (default "")
        --file-remove
            Remove file(s) from archive (glob pattern, i.e. *.xml) (default "")

Examples

  • Rescale images to 1200px for all supported files found in a directory with a size larger than 60MB:

cbconvert --recursive --width 1200 --size 60 /media/comics/Thorgal/

  • Convert all images in pdf to 4bit BMP images and save the result in ~/comics directory:

cbconvert --format bmp --outdir ~/comics /media/comics/Garfield/Garfield_01.pdf

BMP format is a very good choice for black&white pages. Archive size can be smaller 2-3x and the file will be readable by comic readers.

  • Extract covers to ~/covers dir for all supported files found in the directory, Lanczos algorithm is used for resizing:

cbconvert cover --outdir ~/covers --filter=7 /media/comics/GrooTheWanderer/

  • Convert all images to AVIF format:

cbconvert --format avif --quality 50 --width 1280 --outdir ~/comics /media/comics/Misc/

Quality settings

This table maps quality settings for JPEG to the respective AVIF and WEBP quality settings:

JPEG quality 50 60 70 80
AVIF quality 48 51 56 64
WEBP quality 55 64 72 82

Compile

Install ImageMagick7 (with libheif/libjxl support) and MuPDF libraries and headers and then install to GOBIN:

go install -tags extlib github.com/gen2brain/cbconvert/cmd/cbconvert@latest

For GUI app, check IUP requirements, and then install:

go install -tags extlib github.com/gen2brain/cbconvert/cmd/cbconvert-gui@latest