ZIM Converter

Extract text from ZIM files


Drop or upload your .ZIM file
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How to extract text from your ZIM file

  1. Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your ZIM file.
  2. You’ll see a preview, if available.
  3. Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.

Convert ZIM to another file type

To convert your ZIM file to another format, you need Kiwix or other Compressed software.

  • ZIM to PDF
  • ZIM to HTML
  • ZIM to TXT
  • ZIM to ZIP
  • ZIM to RAR
  • ZIM to 7Z
  • ZIM to TAR
  • ZIM to GZ
  • ZIM to BZ2
  • ZIM to XZ
  • ZIM to LZMA
  • ZIM to CAB

Convert a file to ZIM

To convert other file formats to the "Offline Web Archive" file type, you need software like Kiwix or a similar tool.

  • XXE to ZIM
  • 7Z to ZIM
  • Z to ZIM
  • PAK to ZIM
  • LHA to ZIM
  • DEB to ZIM
  • UUE to ZIM
  • TAR to ZIM
  • LZH to ZIM
  • ZIP to ZIM
  • PKG to ZIM
  • RAR to ZIM

About ZIM files

A .ZIM file is primarily an open standard file format created by the openZIM project to store website content for offline usage. It is best known as the storage container for Kiwix, allowing users to carry the entirety of Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, or Project Gutenberg on a USB drive without an internet connection.

While incredibly efficient for storage, the .ZIM format presents significant friction for standard workflows: it is a binary blob that standard web browsers like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox cannot open directly. The content is highly compressed (often using LZMA2 or Zstandard), meaning you cannot simply "unzip" it like a ZIP file to access the underlying HTML and images. To view the content, you are forced to install specialized reader software like Kiwix or run a local server instance.

Users frequently need to convert .ZIM files to make the information portable or accessible. For extracting specific articles or referencing content in documents, converting to PDF is the ideal workflow. For developers or archivists wanting to host the content on a standard web server, converting the archive to standard HTML and CSS is necessary. In some cases, users may wish to read these archives on e-readers, making conversion to EPUB a valuable option.

Convert.Guru analyzes your ZIM file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.

Users also converted PDF, ZIP, HTML, TBL, JSON, JPG, MP4, BAT, TXT, PNG, RAR, SLDPRT and ACSM files.



The ZIM Converter Story

The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our ZIM converter.