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Kiwix & Offline Content

Kiwix is an offline content reader that lets you browse Wikipedia, educational resources, medical references, and more — without any internet connection. OAK bundles Kiwix along with curated ZIM files on M and L tier distributions.

Kiwix and ZIM content are only available on M and L tier distributions. If you have the S tier, this section does not apply.

What are ZIM files?

ZIM is an open format for storing web content offline. Each .zim file is a self-contained archive of a website — Wikipedia, a medical encyclopedia, coding tutorials, and so on. Kiwix reads these files and lets you search and browse them just like you would online.

Opening Kiwix

Windows

  1. Open the software/kiwix-desktop/ folder on this removable media.
  2. Extract kiwix-desktop_windows_x64_*.zip.
  3. Run kiwix-desktop.exe from the extracted folder.

Linux

  1. Open the software/kiwix-desktop/ folder on this removable media.
  2. Make the AppImage executable: chmod +x kiwix-desktop_x86_64_*.appimage
  3. Run: ./kiwix-desktop_x86_64_*.appimage

macOS / Linux (command line)

Kiwix-serve provides a browser-based reader:

  1. Open the software/kiwix/ folder on this removable media.
  2. Extract the archive for your platform.
  3. Start the server pointing at the ZIM directory:
./kiwix-serve --port 8080 /path/to/zim/**/*.zim
  1. Open http://localhost:8080 in any browser.

Browsing ZIM content

Once Kiwix is open:

  1. Click Open file (or use File > Open).
  2. Navigate to the zim/ folder on this removable media.
  3. Select any .zim file to open it.
  4. Use the search bar to find articles within the loaded content.

You can open multiple ZIM files and switch between them using the tabs or library view.

What's included

Priority Category Examples Tier
P0 — Survival & medical Emergency medicine, water, food safety, disaster prep, children's encyclopedia, FreeCodeCamp zimgit-medicine, librepathology, vikidia, freecodecamp M, L
P1 — Reference & education Simple English Wikipedia, PhET simulations, Appropedia, Wikivoyage, TED-Ed wikipedia_en_simple, phet, ted_ed M, L
P2 — Deep reference Full Wikipedia mini, Wikibooks, MDWiki medical, Wikiversity, SuperUser wikipedia_en_all_mini, mdwiki, wikibooks L only

ZIM files are organized in subdirectories under zim/ by topic: medical/, survival/, education/, reference/, sustainability/, literature/, and tech/.

For the full catalog of ZIM files with sizes and selection criteria, see the ZIM Content Catalog.

Tips

Full manifest with versions and sizes