Save yourself a headache and change the file type. I recently found myself needing to extract several images from a Pages document and was at a loss. In Microsoft Word, saving out images is rather simple, you right-click on an embedded image and then you can save the picture out however you need to.

But, with Pages, you don’t have that option. It can be downright cumbersome to try and pull images out of a Pages document manually, but fortunately, there is another way. With previous versions of Pages, you could right-click on the file and Show Package Contents, but beginning with Pages ’09, documents within Pages are created as a Single File and that option is no longer there. This is simply an advanced setting that can be changed from inside Pages. • Save your document.

An immense improvement on an already rich collection of 950 high-quality images. From now on, the Pages Clipart package contains a total of 1200 shiny clipart pieces to make your text documents even more fascinating.

• Go to the File Menu > Advanced. • Select Change File Type. • Select Package. • Go to the file and right-click on it.

The option to Show Package Contents should now be available and you can pull images out as needed. If you think about the file as a container, then you are storing all the elements of that container in the Package Contents. You can pull elements out one by one, but if you do that, the file will no longer see those. With the case of images, the file is usually storing the full size version and the size that is shown in your document.

Both of these files will appear in the Package Contents. You can easily see which is which by looking at the file size. The larger-sized files are the higher resolution versions. Because removing these files can severely mess up your document and its layout, I would recommend copying any files you need rather than moving them. This is also an easy process.

You can either select the file and select Copy from the Edit menu, or type Cmd + C and then paste what you’ve copied into a new location, or you can drag the file to a new location while holding the Option button on your keyboard. A green + will appear to indicate that you are copying the file and not just moving it.

If you’re a Mac user who finally dumped Microsoft Office to live on the side of Apple’s iWork then you know the value of Pages and Keynote. What’s missing in both apps is a full library of quality, 3rd party graphic illustrations. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of image collections to drag and drop into your iWork documents. You just have to know where to look and be prepared to pay. Good illustration collections aren’t available for next to nothing in a Walmart close-out bin.

Illustration Collections or Clip Art? One of my favorite collections is from, specifically Clipart Prime (now available in the Mac App Store). This is a premium collection of 100 high quality images and priced such that you know Jumsoft is proud of their product. The company has a value package creatively titled, similarly priced, but containing 1,400 clip art images. As with many graphic illustration packages, Clipart comes in high quality PNG and PDF formats.

The 1,200 images in the title are in the package from Graphic Node. These are cartoonish 3D people and objects so it’s unlikely they’ll be attractive to the advertising crowd, but are perfect for Mac users in need of quick drag and drop images for Pages documents and Keynote presentations. Jumsoft’s Clipart, also available on the Mac App Store, makes images drag and drop, copy and paste for iWork or Microsoft Office documents (or, other graphic apps). The only problem I have with graphic illustration collections is that you never have enough.

I’ve been collecting CDs and DVDs of images for about 15 years, and still manage to cough up a few dollars more for a new package. Where do you use such clipart collections? Anywhere there’s a web page, poster, flyer, newsletter, email template, or presentation that needs to be created. If all you’re after is a theme that’s different than the stock themes provided by Apple in iWork, then has a variety of theme packages for Keynote and Pages. And, the above graphic illustrations (I still like the word clipart) will drag and drop into the theme packages.