Single File Versus Package

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at the two different options you've got for saving files in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. 

So something you may or may not have noticed when using Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on your Mac is that you've got two options for how files are saved. If you just use the default you'll never notice these. But if you're using one of these apps and you go to File, and then Advanced you'll see Change File Type. If you look there you'll see you've got the option Single File or Package. Single File is the default. Package is another option. What's the difference between these? When should you use one or the other? 

This document is saved as a Single File. But if I go and duplicate it and then with this duplicate let's change the file name so we know which one is a Package, and then I'm going to go into File, Advanced and change the file type to Package. Now I'm going to Save it. Now both of these are here on my Desktop and they both look the same. If I select each one and Get Info on it, you can see this one is 32 MB and this one is also 32 MB. They are virtually identical in size. But the difference is that this is a regular single file. There is nothing else to see here. It's just an individual file like any other file. This, however, is something called a Package. Packages are like folders. They have multiple files in them but they behave in the Finder like a single file. So you really don't see a difference. If I were to double-click on either one it would just open it up in Pages and it would work the same as the other. 

But with a Package I can Control Click, right click, or two-finger click with a trackpad, and I get the option to Show Package Contents. If I do that it opens up like a folder and I can see all of these other files inside that folder. I've got a Data Folder inside that and other one for Metadata. There's all sorts of different pieces in here that are building blocks to create this Pages document. So it is actually a folder with multiple files in it instead of a single file. As a matter of fact if I look in here I can identify the three different images I've got in the Pages document. There's the full size version of each one and also a smaller kind of thumbnail version for faster rendering for each one.  There's also even a Preview image here. All of this stuff can be seen individually if I open up the Package. It's all still there in this Single File version of it but I have no way to get to the individual items. They are imbedded in this one file that's not human readable in any way. You can only open it up in Pages. 

Now you don't just have that option in Pages. You also have it in Numbers. While working in Numbers you can go to File, Advanced and you have Single File and Package. The same thing in Keynote. You go to File, Advanced and you've got the two file types there. 

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So why are there two different versions here? What are the advantages to each? Well, the advantage to a Single File is that it is simple. Just a regular single file that's  exactly what you would expect. It's not just simple to you. It's also simple to different file systems. So, for instance, if you're going to save this document on a non-Mac file system like a Windows or Linux file system then Single File is the safe bet. It will act just like a regular single file and won't try to use anything Mac specific, like a Package. Also, if you're trying to save in a Cloud Service that is not iCloud, like DropBox, OneDrive, Goggle Drive, things like that, then Single File is also the safer option there. It is just a regular file and it will survive going from system to system to system and then back to you, on a Mac, to open it up. So what is the advantage of a Package?

Well, there are two. One is speed. But the only time you would notice a speed difference is for a massive document because each of the graphics is a separate file inside the Package. Instead of having to open up a massive single file it can simply open up just the parts that are needed to display what you see at the moment. So if there are, say, 500 different images and they are all large images in a Pages document but you're only going to see 2 or 3 right there on the first page, it's going to be easier for your Mac to display that first page. It doesn't have to open the entire file, just the parts of the Package it needs. However, you're not going to see that difference on modern Macs with any reasonably sized file. It's going to have to be a huge file and/or an older Mac using a spinning hard drive rather than a SSD for you to even notice the difference. 

Now another advantage to using a Package is if you show Package Contents you actually have access to the media in there. So, if you wanted to get a hold of, say, all of these images in here and drag them out to use as regular files the Package gives you that ability. More on that in a minute. 

Now if you want to know more there's some information about this in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote Help. Just search for Package and you'll see an item here in Help that tells you a little bit about it. It actually even gives a recommendation of 500 MB if you're going to see an advantage if the file is over 500 MB and that it just may perform better. But a big factor is whether using an SSD or an older hard disk drive. 

So when thinking about performance it's hard to imagine a Pages file that's big enough to need this. You need to have a lot of images in a very large Pages file, and then be using that on a slower Mac for there, maybe, to be a difference. You can certainly try each file type to see if you notice a difference. The same thing in Numbers, or maybe even more so because we're less likely to use lots of images or videos in a Numbers document than in Pages. 

However, Keynote is an interesting case because it is fairly common to use videos in Keynote. It is also fairly common to have lots of images. You can easily Drag & Drop lots of images into the left sidebar to create a huge slideshow. So, I think it's more typical maybe to end up with huge files for a big Keynote presentation than actually a Pages or Numbers document. So, perhaps if you are working with a huge Keynote presentation and you notice it takes a while to open up the file and work with it you may want to experiment with changing to a Package file type to see if that helps. 

Now you may also like the idea of getting to the images inside of a Pages document as an advantage to using the Package File type. If you just need quick access to it, like you want to grab all of these images at once, then you certainly can do it. You can go into the Data File here. You can Sort by Kind or Size, maybe to just grab the actual original images and not the small ones. Or you can just do a Search here and then type NOT in all caps space small and it will eliminate those files that have small in the name and then you should be able to Drag & Drop these somewhere else. You can always just change your file type to Package, do this, and then change it back to Single File afterwards. 

But if you just need an image or two it's pretty easy to extract from any Pages document. So I'll just go back into this, the Single File version here, and I can select this image here. I can Control Click on it and Copy or just Command C with it copied. In Preview I can do File, New From Clipboard and now I've got a new Preview document that has that image in it. Or with the image selected I go to Format and then Image here and I see File Info. You can see this little icon here with the File Name. I can drag that out and I can get the original file back or if it is just my intention to use this image in some other document I can always just select it here and Copy and then in a New Pages Document or Numbers or Keynote or Notes or email you can just paste it in.

So there are lots of ways to extract images from a file without having to use this Package file format.

So in summary, for most people in a majority of cases, just stick with the default and use the Single File format for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. But in some extreme cases with very large files, maybe when using an older Mac with a hard drive instead of a solid state drive, you may want to experiment with using the Package file type to see if it improves performance. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.