Kiwix desktop on an USB Drive (Portable version)

This documentation explains how to get a portable Kiwix on a USB flash drive, CD or DVD and launch it we a predefined set of ZIM files.

Needed

• Kiwix for Windows/Linux 2.4.0 for GNU/Linux and Windows
• ZIM files
• Optional: Kiwix manage for GNU/Linux or Windows (depending on which OS you configure your portable version of Kiwix)

Principle

Kiwix Desktop uses multiple configuration files to keep track of things. Their respective purpose and location is explained here.

To make a portable version, you just need to put an empty file called .portable beside the executable (kiwix or kiwix.exe) and then at the next start Kiwix will create just right beside a data directory and write/read everything from there.

Steps

• Download Kiwix
• Unpack it
• Create the .portable file
• Start Kiwix

If you want to add ZIM file, you can download them using Kiwix or just put them manually in the data directory. In both cases they will appear in your local library.

If the order in which the books (ZIM files) appear in the library matter, then you will have to use kiwix-manage

With Kiwix manage

Kiwix manage is part of the Kiwix tools and allows you to manipulate a library.xml from a set a local ZIM files.

• Copy your ZIM files on the USB drive (wherever you want)
• Open a terminal and go inside the data directory beside the Kiwix executable
• Run kiwix-manage library.xml add ZIM_FILE_1 ZIM_FILE_2

You will get a library.xml in the same directory than the Kiwix Desktop executable, pointing to the ZIM files in the USB drive.