Distinction between saving and exporting

Question

Some software makes a distinction between saving and exporting. Lets take the image processing software GIMP as an example. The save button will only allow to save the project file in the native gimp file format .XCF. If one desires to save the current image in any other format like .png, .jpg etc. one has to use the export button. While I understand the obvious difference between saving a project file and exporting a project file I feel like this distinction makes for a very bad user experience. The number of times I clicked "save" when I really wanted to export my work is depressing and I hear the same from colleague.

Are there any benefits to this distinction for the end user over the simple selection of the desired file format in the save dialog?

Answer 1

Export is often used for file formats which don't support saving your current editing status. Word let's you save .doc, .docx, .odt and so on, but only export .pdf, .html and similar.

Same with gimp: You can save .xcf, but only export .jpg, .png and the same. The reason for this is that with any other file format than .xcf gimp loses data like layers which you need for further editing. When you open your saved file again, you'd expect that you can continue editing as before closing gimp. You can of course import your .jpg, .png, ... files again, but most data is lost (except for some exif data, but that's not what you need for editing).

For some picture formats like .jpg there's even a loss in quality and you don't want to open your HD image project on the next day and find it in low quality.

One a side note, I think it's the same with Photoshop and its .psd format.

The user on the other hand will keep all his editing information by default and will be forced to think about whether his product is finished before he makes it public, sends it to a teacher and so on.

Answer 2

A "save" function should be expected to yield a file which, if opened later in the editor, will yield one that precisely matches what was saved. An "export" function is appropriate in cases where the file will be target format's best representation of the data, but the target format may not necessarily be capable of holding all of the information in the editor.

A "save" function should be lossless; an "export" function may be lossy, or may produce a file that cannot be read at all by the application created it. Note that sometimes it may be appropriate to use "export" even for file formats which can store all the information that an editor presently supports, if it is expected that future versions of the editor may be able to handle information that those file formats cannot.

An interesting question from a UI perspective is how to handle the case where, despite having features a popular document format can't support, a program ends up being a popular choice for people wanting to edit that document. In some cases, having to explicitly import and export such files could be annoying. I would suggest that it may be helpful for a program to have separate "New..." options for creating a new SuperThing document or a new StandardThing document, and have the editor only allow features which are available in the type of document being edited. If a user opens a StandardThing document and wants to use SuperThing features, the user should be prompted to first "Import current document as SuperThing", which would then create an untitled SuperThing document with content imported from the original. If a user is editing a document which contains SuperThing features and wants to save as StandardThing, the user should be prompted to first "Export current document as StandardThing", which should then create an untitled StandardThing document with content imported from the original.

Answer 3

If you Save a file, then continue editing, you will be editing the file you just saved. If you Export, you won't continue editing the file you exported, but the previously saved file. It's a subtle difference because you don't actually edit a file until it's saved/exported, but this is how the user sees it.

Answer 4

This is what GIMP documentation has to say about the distinction (emphasis added):

In former GIMP releases, when you loaded an image in some format, let us say JPG or PNG, the image kept its format and was saved in the same format by Save. With GIMP-2.8, images are loaded, imported, in the XCF format as a new project.

and

When you are finished working with an image, you will want to save the results. [...] Most of the file formats that GIMP can open, can also be used for saving. There is one file format that is special, though: XCF is GIMP's native format, and is useful because it stores everything about an image (well, almost everything; it does not store “undo” information). Thus, the XCF format is especially suitable for saving intermediate results, and for saving images to be re-opened later in GIMP. XCF files are not readable by most other programs that display images, so once you have finished, you will probably also want to export the image in a more widely used format, such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, etc.

So as @Daniel Zahra said, it is about the way GIMP thinks of the workflow. You only save when you are in progress and only export at the end. And workflows are application specific, for example in Lightroom (3 at least) you don't save anything, there is no save.

Photoshop has its own file format that "saves everything" .psd. I haven't been using newer Photoshop since CS2 but in it .psd files were saved along with other formats.

Answer 5

Generally, a "save" is going to result in a "flavor" of a common file type, native to the application (e.g., Photoshop should "save" raster images, Excel should "save" spreadsheet documents). On the other hand, an "export" is going to result in a fundementally different file type, that does its best to mimic one native to the application (e.g., Photoshop should "export" vector images, Excel should "export" PDF documents).

Additionally (as mentioned earlier), ususally, with a save, if you open up the file you will see a fairly similar version of the content that you saved (quality and feature support of the chosen file type may affect that). With an export, if you convert to another file type, you may not be able to convert back (e.g., you will not get anything meaningful in Excel if you open a PDF), or the conversion process (usually an "import") will result in some noticable changes to your original content, potentially with a loss of data or "data relationships".

Part of the problem is that, unfortunately, some applications have blurred that line between the two processes. For example, Excel allows you to "save" a text or CSV document, which are NOT spreadsheet formats. Somebody likely made the decision that the loss in formating was not significant enough to put it under "export" and by placing it under "save" you minimize the confusion to the user. Clearly, they were incorrect on that last point. ;)

Answer 6

I feel that your problem is relating to different software using different terminology. When dealing with a 'Save' I am expecting to save the document while I keep working on it later. When exporting I am ready to deliver the file to someone else.

Exporting is often also used to change the file format of the output file.

I do not think it's about benefits but more about different functionality between exporting and saving. Some application hardly make the difference but I find that that is an application specific deficient not a terminology one.

Answer 7

This does not seem to be a UX issue so much as an issue of using the right tool for the job.

It sounds like you and your co-worker were provided GIMP, or found it to be recommended for "image editing". GIMP, however, aims to be a professional-level editing program akin to Photoshop. There are many simpler, more basic tools that give you the functionality that you desire if you are looking to open a jpg, adjust colors/crop/rotate etc., and save to overwrite the same jpg file.

The use case of GIMP, however, is more akin to a video-editing tool. Imagine working on a movie. You want to rearrange scenes, change titles, introduce transitions, etc. You would never expect saving to lay the video out to tape (or a compressed video file/DVD/whatever) would you? That would clearly be an export function.