Want to create a cover gallery
November 5, 2011 4:32 PM   Subscribe

I have some CBR and CBZ files and I would like to extract the first image in each one (presumably the cover) to another directory for use in an iPhoto library. I have both Mac and Windows available to me. Is there any software that can do this?
posted by arniec to Computers & Internet (11 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Have you looked at Calibre?
posted by blazingunicorn at 4:35 PM on November 5, 2011


i think you can open them in your archive utility of choice (i use 7zip on windows) and just get at the images that way! not sure about an os x solution (maybe os x's native archive utility can do the same thing).
posted by raihan_ at 4:35 PM on November 5, 2011


How about screen capture software? Grab.app is part of the operating system, located in the Utilities folder. If you need more features, Snapz Pro is the best of the bunch.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:35 PM on November 5, 2011


It seems as if that format is rather old. There are some software out there that are for this type of doc, but they are listed as being on Geocities, so you can imagine how old they are or even if they exist.

Can you post a sample so I can run a test? I have some thoughts on this, but don't want to post a solution that doesn't work.
posted by lampshade at 4:52 PM on November 5, 2011


CBR and CBZ files are just renamed .rar or .zip files with .jpeg images in them. Just use whatever you would normally use to work with .zip or .rar archives. 7zip is a fine choice.
posted by Zetetics at 5:15 PM on November 5, 2011 [1 favorite]


I swear by using StuffIt Expander on my Mac with all of the *.cbz files. Very easy and quick extraction. I have never had a problem.
posted by Nackt at 5:19 PM on November 5, 2011


If it is only a handful of files then you can indeed do the extraction manually.

If you are looking for a bulk solution then there probably isn't going to be an off-the-shelf way of doing it. A custom method would be to write a Windows batch file that cycles through a directory of cbrs and cbzs and for each one

1) Extracts the contents to a temporary folder
2) Dumps a directory listing of that folder into a text file
3) Grabs the first line of the text file created in 2)
4) Copies the file detailed in the line grabbed in 3) to your final folder
5) Deletes the contents of the temporary folder
posted by MUD at 5:46 PM on November 5, 2011


This example should work on vanilla OSX as long as you have the 'rar' program (will also work with 'unrar' with minor changes). Could be easily tweaked for CBZ archives using 'zip/unzip' and a bit of playing about (I have no CBZ archives to test). Extracts first image from 'foobar.cbz' archive and names it 'foobar_cover.ext' where 'ext' is whatever extension the first file has. It's not very smart, YMMV.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:18 PM on November 5, 2011


Windows: If you move/copy all the cbr/cbz files to a single location, you should be able to use Z-zip to extract them to uniquely named sub-directories. Then use Explorer's built-in search to look for "01", "cover", or whatever pattern will nab the images you're after - or just look for *.jpg and sort the results by name.
posted by unmake at 10:58 PM on November 5, 2011


.. To use 7-Zip in that manner, select all the files, right click, choose "7-Zip", "Extract to *\".
posted by unmake at 11:01 PM on November 5, 2011


If you use Comic Book Lover (and you should) to view your cbr/cbz files, as you add your files it automatically puts the covers here: /Library/Application Support/ComicBookLover/blobs

I point my screen saver to this directory to have an awesome comic cover display.
posted by FreezBoy at 3:18 AM on November 6, 2011


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