• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

  • Reading Orders
    • Marvel
    • My Marvelous Year
    • DC Comics
    • All Comic Book Publishers
    • Most Recent
  • Beginner Guides
    • Beginner’s Guide To Comics In 2025
    • Marvel 2025: Where to Start?
    • DC 2025: Where to Start?
    • Best of Lists
    • Tablets for Comics
    • Guides for Digital Readers
  • Reviews
    • Marvel Comics
    • DC Comics
    • Comic Book Movies
    • Comic Book TV
    • Video Games
  • Podcasts & Video
    • My Marvelous Year
    • Best Comics Ever (CBH)
    • CBH on Youtube!
  • About Me
    • My Favorite Comics of All Time
    • Columns
    • CBH Monthly Email
  • Support Comic Book Herald
    • Ways to support
You are here: Home / Comics Guides / Digital Readers / How to Read Comic Book PDFs (Offline) on Your Tablet

How to Read Comic Book PDFs (Offline) on Your Tablet

October 20, 2014 by Dave 3 Comments

I can’t totally decide how embarrassed I should be by this, so I’ll just come out and say it: I’ve had the hardest time figuring out a good way to read comic book PDFs on my tablet. Ok, Ok, I hear you, my grandma’s calling and she’d like to offer some help with getting me on the internet, I get it. But when you rule out the tedious and time-consuming practice of manually loading PDF files onto a device, what’s the best way to read comic book PDFs (on the go) on your tablet?

My criteria are as follows:

  • I don’t want to have to manually move the PDF file from my desktop to my tablet. I almost never plug my device directly into my desktop and even though it’s technically “easy,” I’ve ruled it out.
  • I need to have access to the PDF offline. This is purely for commuting purposes. If PDF access is reliant on a WiFi connection, I’ve ruled it out.

This is probably the part in the discussion (is it weird that I pretend these drawn out interior monologues are discussions?) where you ask why I’m so interested in PDFs. Why don’t I just read comics using established comic book reader files like .cbr or .cbz?

This is a good question, and I’ve written here in the past how I import .cbz DRM-Free Image Comics directly from Dropbox into my Komix Android reader app. I’ve found that my auto-Dropbox import is less successful for .cbr files (Komix will never load the files… weird, right?), so I read those using ComicRack (importing manually as needed – the autosync feature is via paid subscription only, and I’m not that lazy).

This works well for those types of files, but what I’ve found this year is that when comic book publishers offer review copies (#reviewbrag) they send them in the form of PDF. And since my searches for “PDF to .cbr file converter” were completely fruitless (if you know of a good tool / how to do this, I’d love to hear about it), I’ve had to just read the copies as PDFs.

Reading Comic Book PDFs on Your Tablet

Without further ado, here’s my favorite way to set up offline reading of Comic book PDFs.

First, you need to move the PDF file to a folder in Google Drive. Don’t use Google Drive? Start! It’s free, and you can store up to 115 GB for free. By comparison, Dropbox offers 2 GB (for free). Those numbers are different, I agree.

Once your comic book file is in Google Drive, open the Google Drive app on your tablet. Access the folder and you’ll see your comic book file. Now, when you’re setting this up you’ll want to be connected to WiFi. If you click the file right here, your tablet will begin to load the PDF into the PDF reader of your choice. The downside is that once you move to offline you may lose access to this download.

The simple workaround is to long-hold the file name and then select “Pin to This Device.” This will download the comic as if you were going to read, but will locally pin it on your tablet. Now when you want to access your comic, all you have to do is pop open Google Drive and select your “On Device” files.

google drive comic book reading intsructions
Keep on this device!

Comic books away!

Amazing Spider-Man Marvel GIT comics collection

There you have it. A reasonably simple way to read comic book PDFs on your tablet. Have a better way? Know how to convert these files to .cbz or .cbr? Do what feels right to you in the comments.

Filed Under: Digital Readers, Featured Tagged With: digital comic books, Google Drive, pdf

Heroically Support Comic Book Herald!

Comic Book Herald is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a qualifying affiliate commission.

If you like Comic Book Herald, and are able to donate, any small contribution will help keep CBH alive and updated. Donate here! Or, support My Marvelous Year on Patreon for exclusive rewards! Thank you for reading!


CBH Monthly Newsletter



About Dave

Dave is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Comic Book Herald, and also the Boss of assigning himself fancy titles. He's a long-time comic book fan, and can be seen most evenings in Batman pajama pants. Contact Dave @comicbookherald on Twitter or via email at dave@comicbookherald.com.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Elijah says

    September 20, 2015 at 8:50 pm

    I know this post is old and hopefully you’ve figured it out, but I use Calibre to convert cbr or cbz to pdf. Simple to use and has output settings based on which device you are going to be reading your comic on to maximize the amount of comics you can store on your device.

    Reply
  2. Eric says

    November 7, 2014 at 12:50 pm

    This blog is awesome. Thank you!

    For iPad:
    I’ve tried pretty much all comic reader apps and Chunky Reader is the best way to read comics on iPad. Hands down. Pulls from various cloud storage (incl. Dropbox). Really simple, easy to use, and opens all formats (pdf, cbz, cbr). Plus auto-groups comics (saves down all comics from the same series, in order, automatically).

    Reply
    • Dave says

      November 12, 2014 at 11:08 pm

      Thanks Eric!

      I haven’t used Chunky Reader yet, I will need to give that one a look. Sounds like a winner 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

The My Marvelous Year Podcast!

Apple PodcastsRSS

CBH Monthly Newsletter!

Amazing Spider-Man Marvel GIT comics collection
My Marvelous Year Podcast and Reading Club 1

Recent Posts

  • 2011 Pt. 5: Fear Itself & Journey Into Mystery July 7, 2025
  • My Favorite Graphic Novels of June 2025 July 1, 2025
  • 2011 Pt. 4: Spider-Man: One More Day Redeemed??? And Venom is a Soldier now! June 30, 2025
  • 2011 Variant Cover B: Best Comics of 2025 So Far! (W/ Zack Quaintance) June 23, 2025
  • The Best Comics of 2025 (So Far!) June 18, 2025
  • 2011 Pt. 3: Hickman’s FF, SHIELD, & Secret Warriors June 16, 2025
  • Extra Issues – Dykes to Watch Out For (1983) June 9, 2025
  • 2011 Pt. 1: Avengers: The Children’s Crusade June 9, 2025
  • My Favorite Graphic Novels of May 2025 June 4, 2025
  • 2011 Variant Cover A: DC and Marvel cross over, Zack has a really compelling dream, and Dave runs the Eisners now June 2, 2025
  • 2011 Pt. 2: Uncanny X-Force, X-23, & Wolverine (Pt. 1 is delayed) May 26, 2025
  • 2010 pt. 10: The WORST Spider-Man Comics of All Time?! And FrankenCastle (again) May 19, 2025
  • 2010 Variant Cover E: Thunderbolts Review w/ Tiffany Babb May 12, 2025
  • Extra Issues – Lucifer Pt. 2 (2000) May 8, 2025
  • 2010 Pt. 9: Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Bucky on Trial, & Invincible Iron Man May 5, 2025

Popular Articles

DC Rebirth Guide

Batman Reading Order

DC New 52 Reading Order

Marvel Ultimate Universe Guide

Civil War Reading Order

Marvel Cosmic Reading Order

The Best Comics of All Time!

Deadpool Reading Order

Justice League Reading Order

Complete Thanos Reading Order

X-Men Reading Guide (Modern Era)

Age of Apocalypse Reading Order

Modern Marvel Universe in 25 Trades

Best Tablet For Digital Comics

Is Marvel Unlimited Worth It?

Footer

New to Comic Book Herald?

Hey there - my name's Dave and this is my comic book blog. It's my way of sharing my borderline obsessive addiction to the comic book medium, and to help you enjoy the comics!

Most people that come here are looking for my Marvel reading order guide. You can probably also get a sense if CBH is for you by taking a look at some of my recent favorite comics.

If you like what you see, check out the CBH monthly newsletter . Or, leave a comment on the blog here, I'm always looking for new awesome people in the comic book community.

More on Comic Book Herald

  • Home
  • About
  • Support CBH
  • My Marvelous Year
  • Monthly Newsletter
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

Recent Posts

  • 2011 Pt. 5: Fear Itself & Journey Into Mystery
  • My Favorite Graphic Novels of June 2025
  • 2011 Pt. 4: Spider-Man: One More Day Redeemed??? And Venom is a Soldier now!
  • 2011 Variant Cover B: Best Comics of 2025 So Far! (W/ Zack Quaintance)
  • The Best Comics of 2025 (So Far!)

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in