Thanks, I saw how to make CBR's in the scanning guide but I didn't believe it to be a fake file format - a rename of zip for cbr and zip for cbz. I opened issues with 7-ZIP to see they really are just JPEG's that display in alphabetical order.
You're right but isn't publishing magazines that can't be easily edited desirable? Is anyone here editing magazines already published? Trivially easy to remove the RetroMags page out of the CBZ to re-brand or compile in a product for sale. PDF's also seem to take up 2-3x less disk space, if my conversion of EGM Issue 54 from 418 MB in CBZ to 159 MB in PDF is any indication.
I think it's disingenuous to force one file format upon the masses. I like archive.org's method of making issues taken from here available for download in (original?) ZIP, EPUB, PDF, searchable PDF, text-only, MOBI and GZ. They also apply ABBYY FineReader 11.0 to make a set of the PDF's searchable, which is a huge advantage. Too bad software costs $200. Granted, text slanted at more than about 30° wasn't searchable when I tested.
Who doesn't mind using a PDF reader? Easy to zoom in and out and change viewing from single page to double page, which I think is all that most people care about. PDF is 100% standard in the business world. If PDF were the only format offered then I'd be concerned but RetroMags obviously already has zipped JPEG containers (CBZ/CBR).
I tried free STDU Converter to convert a CBZ to PDF. Worked well enough. I'm sure there are many ways to convert JPEG's to PDF. Banned for using another file format that has endless free readers available? At least you were unbanned. Can we not take upload their searchable PDF's here too? Particularly if they're half the filesize? The CBZ/CBR-only decision must have been made a long time ago. Perhaps it's time to revisit it in the wake of making images searchable with OCR software.