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CBR
What is a CBR file?
The same idea as CBZ but packed with RAR, which is why it can only be unpacked, never written.
What CBR is
CBR is a container: a wrapper that holds streams encoded by something else. It is used for handing a finished file over.
The extension is .cbr, and the full name is Comic Book Archive (RAR). Both matter less than what the file can hold, which is what the rest of this page is about.
The specification belongs to its vendor
Reading it outside the vendor’s own software depends on work done by other people, usually by inspection rather than by documentation. That mostly works and occasionally does not, which is the reason to convert anything you intend to keep.
It is a legacy format
It still opens everywhere and is still written by older tools, but nothing new is being built around it. Convert what you mean to keep, and do not choose it for something starting today.
It can hold a whole folder
CBR stores a directory: names, folders and the structure between them. That is what lets it stand in for a folder in an email attachment.
It can hold several pages in one file
A CBR file is not limited to one page, which matters when converting to something that is: a target that holds one image produces one file per page, and the numbering it chooses is worth checking before you send it on.
What opens CBR
YACReader and ComicRack read it, and so do most programs of the same kind.
If a file will not open, the format is rarely the problem — it is more often that the program predates it. Converting to something older is the reliable way past that, and it is what the rest of this site is for.
Opening it in a browser
No browser reads it.
That is the single most common reason to convert it: not that the format is bad, but that the place you want to show the file cannot read it.
It is a delivery format
CBR is meant to be handed over rather than worked in. Editing one is possible and rarely pleasant; the sane approach is to change the source and export again.
What goes wrong with it
The recurring complaints: support outside its home ground is uneven.
None of these is a reason to avoid the format. They are the things worth knowing before you are surprised by one, which is a different claim and a more useful one.
The facts, in one place
| Extension | .cbr |
|---|---|
| Media type | application/vnd.comicbook-rar |