The key to appreciating the difference in a packed project is understanding the structure of a .pds file.
The .pds file holds the "editing instructions" and asset status of the project at the time of saving.
As regards the assets, which are the usual source/cause of problems, the .pds file hard codes the asset locations. This is very useful if the assets are scattered over multiple locations including local and external drives.
However, it is useless if those assets are re-named, re-located or the external drives are re-addressed. Then the .pds file cannot automatically find them and the browse facility is triggered. All is well if all the assets can be manually located but sometimes that is not the case.
Placing copies of all the assets in a project folder minimises the problem, but does not address the potential problem caused by the hard coding of file locations. This is particularly important if a project needs to be transported to another system or drive, which may have different drive letters.
Packing the project, to a location of choice, removes the hard coding and allows the .pds to "assume" all project asset locations are within the local packed folder - in effect giving a portable project.
It should be noted that this applies to project assets only, rather than any customised aspects of PD itself - titles etc. - which may be used in a project on one system but not available on another.
Cheers
Adrian
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.
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