Comics Cbr files Has anyone transfered their own onto ipad and had success veiwing?

spaceghost7777 said:

Hello,
I have a Comic specific question. I have many cbr files and am aware of the various comic reader apps available. What I want to know is has anyone actually transferred their own Cbr files onto the Ipad (how?) and had success viewing them in any comic reader? How are the files organized? I plan on using the ipad for ebooks and Comics primarily. Just to clarify I do not care about the Marvel app that lets you read their comics for a fee. I am talking about my own personal cbr files on any app that will display them.
Thanks

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I sprung the $7 for comic zeal. You can sync cbr and CBS, and maybe PDFs and some other formats via their sync app and it works pretty darn well. The sync app converts the files into custom sized 'cbi' files, if I recall, but they look fine to me. I think I read that you can also load cbr/cbz files into it directly via the iPad file sharing interface, but I haven't tried it yet.

I like ComicZeal, and while thought $7 was a little pricey for an app I bought once already, it works well and the company behind it has a good history of supporting their apps.

While we are talking about it, I think the iPad will completely revolutionize the comic industry.

The Info

spaceghost7777 said:

Hello,
I have a Comic specific question. I have many cbr files and am aware of the various comic reader apps available. What I want to know is has anyone actually transferred their own Cbr files onto the Ipad (how?) and had success viewing them in any comic reader? How are the files organized? I plan on using the ipad for ebooks and Comics primarily. Just to clarify I do not care about the Marvel app that lets you read their comics for a fee. I am talking about my own personal cbr files on any app that will display them.
Thanks

Click to expand...

ok here is the news dude.
Theres comic zeal 7 bucks, you have to convert your comics to cbi and lose resolution converts it to iphone level images yuck.
Then theres comic reader mobi 14 bucks, does everything from itunes, organizations is not too good, but it read native cbr, cbz, zip, rar and pdfs and images looks stunning.
Last theres Comicpad (free) you can import files YET, you can only download them to it, its a pain if you have a ton of files like me for now but it has a good interface and the developer is nice guy. here is what he wrote when i asked him to change some stuff.

Thanks for your feedback. I am working on enhancements ComicPad as you type. Some comments:
* I am working on the ability to drag and drop to iTunes right now.
* Glad to hear you think the app would be valuable. I am making it free for now, but may start charging once I am able to add some more features.
* I was thinking about black. I may include it as an alternative to the wood/book view

I got Comic reader mobi, paid 17 bucks i think. its worth it since no other can do it everything yet. But if you can wait Comicpad may become better in a few weeks.

In theory, calibre should convert comic files to a format that's compatible with iBooks app. I got less text intensive PDFs converted but no luck for things with a lot of pictures and no text data.

jedivulcan said:

In theory, calibre should convert comic files to a format that's compatible with iBooks app. I got less text intensive PDFs converted but no luck for things with a lot of pictures and no text data.

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ibooks was not made to watch comics, as a comic fan there are certain needs to view a comic.

Just wait for Comic Book Lover to come out for iPad. it will do everything you want and more.
http://www.bitcartel.com/comicbooklover/ipad.html

Viper2005 said:

Just wait for Comic Book Lover to come out for iPad. it will do everything you want and more.
http://www.bitcartel.com/comicbooklover/ipad.html

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From what i used and heard other people Comic book lover crashes all the time, i think out of all the comic readers in the iphone its the one that crashes the most.

jodorowsky00 said:

ok here is the news dude.
Theres comic zeal 7 bucks, you have to convert your comics to cbi and lose resolution converts it to iphone level images yuck.
Then theres comic reader mobi 14 bucks, does everything from itunes, organizations is not too good, but it read native cbr, cbz, zip, rar and pdfs and images looks stunning.
Last theres Comicpad (free) you can import files YET, you can only download them to it, its a pain if you have a ton of files like me for now but it has a good interface and the developer is nice guy. here is what he wrote when i asked him to change some stuff.

Click to expand...

The resolution that comic zeal uses is hardly 'yuck'. It looks good at full page view size on the iPad IMO. The compression makes the files smaller and faster to navigate through and use less battery, which is nice. I have no problem reading comics without any zooming or anything.

In either case, they are adding direct file syncing and viewing of cbr and cbz files...

Due to pre iPad-launch limitations we weren’t able to include iTunes file sharing support or iPad conversion of cbz/cbr files in this version, we’ll get that to you in the next few days.

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this is the reason I want an ipad I have a sony prs-700 right now and I view my comics on my pc using comical any idea if that will work with the ipad

also can you 100% transfer and use cbr files and htm files and books you have already got on your pc

mrgreen4242 said:

The resolution that comic zeal uses is hardly 'yuck'. It looks good at full page view size on the iPad IMO. The compression makes the files smaller and faster to navigate through and use less battery, which is nice. I have no problem reading comics without any zooming or anything.

In either case, they are adding direct file syncing and viewing of cbr and cbz files...

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Well you don't find it yuck, but, read other peoples opinions.

Katep said:

this is the reason I want an ipad I have a sony prs-700 right now and I view my comics on my pc using comical any idea if that will work with the ipad

also can you 100% transfer and use cbr files and htm files and books you have already got on your pc

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I'm not really sure what your asking?
Cbrs, cbz, rar, zip and PDF work , haven't tried HTML files send me a link and I will try it.

jodorowsky00 said:

I'm not really sure what your asking?
Cbrs, cbz, rar, zip and PDF work , haven't tried HTML files send me a link and I will try it.

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they are just firefox pages saved as html I get stories from sites online star wars stuff and star trek stuff they do work on my prs-700 once converted using calibre

Out of about 100 cbr files so far, I've had comic zeal choke on exactly one. Otherwise, no problems with at all. The process and use isn't totally intuitive but once you figure it out it's very stable. The viewing quality is fine to me.

I tried calibre conversion of cbr to epub. You can make it work, but the problem is that the viewing area of iBooks is surpringinly small, so the images will be small on the page. As far as I know there is no way to zoom or do fullscreen in iBooks.

I think there will be better Apps soon, but for now comic zeal is definitely the best < 10 buck option.

This thread is very informative, please keep updating it with your experiences and reviews.

jodorowsky00 said:

ok here is the news dude.
Theres comic zeal 7 bucks, you have to convert your comics to cbi and lose resolution converts it to iphone level images yuck.

Click to expand...

It's resized to 1024pixels. Exactly the ipad resolution, so it's good for portrait as you don't need to zoom. But for those landscape dualpanes things it won't be really good.

Has anyone actually evaluated comicpad yet?

ComicPad supports .cbz, and .zip archives, as well as .png, .jpg, .gif, .bmp, and .tif images — the most popular comic book formats in the world. That makes it easy for publishers and users to create ComicPad versions of your favorite reads.

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This seems to imply you can get your existing comics into it. I can't check it out right now (at work).

Hey, you could try our new app - ComicBookPad

I could give you a few promo codes. Please let me know via PM

spaceghost7777 said:

Hello,
I have a Comic specific question. I have many cbr files and am aware of the various comic reader apps available. What I want to know is has anyone actually transferred their own Cbr files onto the Ipad (how?) and had success viewing them in any comic reader? How are the files organized? I plan on using the ipad for ebooks and Comics primarily. Just to clarify I do not care about the Marvel app that lets you read their comics for a fee. I am talking about my own personal cbr files on any app that will display them.
Thanks

Click to expand...

CloudReaders is the App that I've been trying out for this. It seemed to cope happily with the few CBRs that I chucked at it plus it supports the Document sharing interface and is free. Using iTunes to copy files across is a bit clunky but at least the transfer happens quickly across the USB cable.

I've never downloaded digital comics but I had just planned on scanning small stash of existing ones and using goodreader to view them.

blackNBUK said:

CloudReaders is the App that I've been trying out for this.

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+1

CloudReaders gets the job done for free, and reading CBRs is a breeze. However, organization is a bit of a pain, as (as far as I can tell) you have to manually tag everything (esp. painful if you've got hundreds of files from several series). Worth a look, in any case.

El Cabong said:

+1

CloudReaders gets the job done for free, and reading CBRs is a breeze. However, organization is a bit of a pain, as (as far as I can tell) you have to manually tag everything (esp. painful if you've got hundreds of files from several series). Worth a look, in any case.

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Personally I rather like the idea of using tags instead of a hierarchical file system. In theory it let's you be much more flexible in how you find things. I haven't got enough files to really stress the system though. CloudReaders does at least let you select multiple files and apply tags to all of them at once.

gwynne said:

As far as I know there is no way to zoom or do fullscreen in iBooks.

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Actually there is. If you tap an image, then it will enter a mode where you can pinch and zoom.

I just use calibre to convert comics to pub and then read them in iBooks. I tried some apps like the dc comics and marvel apps and just found it very confusing with all the pans etc. iBooks was like an actual printed page.

Comiczeal is great however bit recently had an update which skewed all file images off centre to the right, I am unsure if this has been patched as of this time as I resynched the app from my iMac to downgrade to the previous version which worked fine.

There is an issue with back up though. 700 cbr files on my comiczeal pushed my iPad back time to over 14 hours, after deleting all files from my iPad back up wasvdown to 6 mins. I hope this bug can be fixed.

Comiczeal worked great on my iPhone 3G and iPhone 4. If I end up getting an iPad. I'm definitely going to look into it. If you use File Sharing in iTunes with Comic Zeal, you don't have to worry about loss of resolution.

While we are talking about it, I think the iPad will completely revolutionize the comic industry.

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I don't think it will quite revolutionize it, but I'm sure it will help create more avenues for people interested in comics. For the person who is interested in Comics but is overwhelmed by visiting a local comic shop, the various apps available are great.

And for guys like me who go to my shop every week, this gives me an opportunity to sample a series I keep hearing about for a couple bucks, without adding anymore clutter to my room. I usually end up liking what I read and go buy some trades.

If publishers could only do something about a better online selection, or more freebies or previews, I think it could cut down a bit on the piracy. I know I'm in the minority, but I'd prefer to have a digital collection of comics and a few paperbacks or hardcovers on my shelf, than boxes and boxes of comics in my closet.