cbz

Cbz is a filename extension used for a type of archive commonly employed to distribute digital comics. The name stands for “Comic Book Zip.” A cbz file is a ZIP-compressed archive in which image files—typically JPEG or PNG—represent the pages of a comic in sequential order.

Technically, a CBZ is simply a ZIP container; it does not define a page layout or metadata beyond the ordering of the contained images. Page order is determined by the file names or the internal archive order as read by the viewer. Because it relies on standard ZIP compression, CBZ files offer broad compatibility across operating systems and reader software, and several tools can create or extract them.

Usage and compatibility: CBZ files are widely supported by comic book readers on desktop and mobile platforms, including CDisplayEx, SumatraPDF, SimpleComic, and Readium-based apps. They are often preferred for distributing comics because they preserve image fidelity and do not require proprietary formats. Creating a CBZ typically involves packaging a sequence of image files into a ZIP archive and renaming the extension to .cbz.

See also: CBR, ZIP archive, comic book archive, file extension CBZ.