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After installing both Yosemite and the new iWork suite updates (Pages 5.5 and Keynote 6.5), I've noticed I can't 'Show Package Contents' in order to access/modify the media associated with these files.

Does anybody know how to get in to these seemingly new formats?

Doesn't seem like a simple unarchive, either...

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3 Answers 3

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I've managed to expand the file by using the system (or any other) archive utility.

Here's how I got into the file:

  1. Make a copy of the .key, .pages, or .numbers document
  2. Change the file extension to .zip
  3. Unarchive as you would any other .zip file to produce a folder
  4. This folder is similar to previous show package contents bundle representations of older file versions
  5. Make the changes you need to the document's data — in my case, this was modifying a few picture files that were used as icons throughout the multi-slide presentation
  6. Re-compress the folder
  7. Change the resultant zip file's extension to .key or .pages or .numbers
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The Show Package Contents option is no longer available because iWork documents are now single files. Previously the documents were bundles; bundles are specialised folders on OS X that appear as files to the user.

The new file formats are not publicly documented. Magnus Lewan discusses the problems this raises on the Pages FAQ site:

Undocumented Proprietary File Format in Pages 5

The new Pages 5 file package format contains binary .iwa files that seem unreadable by other applications. This makes it very difficult or even impossible to recover file content if you are on a computer without Pages 5 or if Apple one day abandons the program. This is a big shift from the XML based file structure of Pages '09 (4.3) and earlier, which at least could be read by text editors, and which in theory could be recovered.

Depending on your needs, you may be able to systematically access the document contents through the applications with an AppleScript.

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  • Thank you for producing some referenced research on the new file formats, Graham! However, if you see my answer below I think I may have figured out a hacky way of getting into iWork files...
    – Sarreph
    Oct 22, 2014 at 12:26
  • Great to hear you regained access to the contents. Thank you for sharing the steps.
    – Graham Miln
    Oct 22, 2014 at 13:34
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The Pages 5.5.3, Numbers 3.5.3, and Keynote 6.5.3 applications and later have a means to convert the single-file format (com.apple.iwork.pages.sffpages) document format into a package file format (com.apple.iwork.pages.pages). It is not advisable to manually do this as has been posted.

Pages File menu: Advanced : Change File Type : {Single File, Package}. Choose Package, and then click File menu : Save.

Images (if present) are in the Data folder. Otherwise, the rest of the document contents is in a new Pages *.iwa format that is only intelligible by the current Pages application.

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