Jump to main content

Font and File Size

1
2
3
4
5
165 reviews

Abstract

What is your favorite font? Is it Chalkboard, Comic Sans, Futura, or Curlz? Whatever your favorite font is, you can test it out with this fun science project.

Summary

Areas of Science
Difficulty
 
Time Required
Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites
None
Material Availability
This science project requires a PC with Microsoft Word or another word processing program that allows fonts to be embedded in text files.
Cost
Very Low (under $20)
Safety
No issues
Credits

Sara Agee, Ph.D., Science Buddies

Sandra Slutz, Ph.D., Science Buddies

  • Microsoft Word® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Objective

Test how the font style of the letters (or characters) in a file might change the size of the file.

Introduction

When you write a story on the computer you can make the text (your words) look any way you choose:

Image of text containing three bullet points of varying fonts

Three fonts are displayed with sample text in three different bullet points. The first text font is a sans-serif font with bold and even line strokes. The second font is a script font that appears italicized. The third font is a sans-serif font that resembles handwriting with long strokes and rounded edges.

You can change the way letters appear by changing the font. Each font is a set of symbols. There is one for each character (letter, number, or punctuation mark). The computer knows which characters to use by following a code. A word processing application, like Microsoft Word®, is a program that writes the code for each character as you type the letters and words in the viewing window. Each character you type is "remembered," or stored, by the computer program. When you hit save, the computer stores the characters in a file.

When you save a file of text, you might choose to embed the font in the file. By embedding it, you tell the program to save both the words and how the words look in the font you chose. Why would you want to do that? Well, imagine that you did not embed the font, and you emailed the file to a friend's computer. What do you think would happen if your friend's computer program did not have information about that font? The program might give your friend an error message, and it would display the text in another font. But if you embedded the font, your friend's program would have information about how to create those characters in that font. You and your friend would see the same thing on his or her screen that you originally made on yours. (If you are interested in creating your own fonts and experimenting with how embedding works, try the second experiment below in the Variations section.)

One thing to watch out for is that embedding the text changes the amount of information that is in the file. Each piece of information that is stored in a file takes up a certain amount of space in the computer's memory. Since a computer has a limited amount of memory, the size of each file needs to be measured so that the computer can keep track of how much memory has been used and how much memory is free (still available to be used). The amount of space that a file uses is called the file size and is usually measured in kilobytes (abbreviated KB) or megabytes (abbreviated MB; 1 MB is equal to 1024KB).

In this experiment, you will test how much memory is needed to store a simple piece of information, like the story of "The Three Little Pigs." You will change the font of the story, or whatever other text you chose, to see if the size of the file changes. Will the font change the file size? What if the text is unembedded versus embedded?

Terms and Concepts

To do this science project you should know what the following terms mean. Have an adult help you search the Internet, or take you to your local library to find out more!

Questions

Bibliography

Read this website for more information about computer memory:

This website will give you a brief overview of the history of fonts:

  • # Link Name="CompSci_p013.2" Value="HtmlAnchor" HtmlText="Clickinks.com" #]. (n.d.) Fonts of History. Retrieved May 11, 2011.

To see examples of many different fonts, try this website:

  • Kaleidoscope Art. (n.d.) Font Examples. Retrieved May 20, 2011.

The text for "The Three Little Pigs" used in this science project was copied from this website:

This website offers help with creating graphs:

  • National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Create a Graph. Retrieved May 4, 2011.

Materials and Equipment

Experimental Procedure

Experimenting with Fonts

  1. Choose a story to use for your science project. The story can be one you write yourself or one that you copy from somewhere else. If you use someone else's story, make sure to give the author credit. A box filled with some of the text for the story "The Three Little Pigs," copied from D. L. Ashliman's website Folktexts: A Library of Folktales, Folklore, Fairy Tales, and Mythology (see the Bibliography for more details). Feel free to use this story for your science project if you want.

There was an old sow with three little pigs, and as she had not enough to keep them, she sent them out to seek their fortune. The first that went off met a man with a bundle of straw, and said to him, "Please, man, give me that straw to build me a house." Which the man did, and the little pig built a house with it.

Presently came along a wolf, and knocked at the door, and said, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."

To which the pig answered, "No, no, by the hair of my chinny chin chin."

The wolf then answered to that, "Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in." So he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew his house in, and ate up the little pig.

The second little pig met a man with a bundle of furze [sticks], and said, "Please, man, give me that furze to build a house." Which the man did, and the pig built his house.

Then along came the wolf, and said, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."

"No, no, by the hair of my chinny chin chin."

"Then I'll puff, and I'll huff, and I'll blow your house in." So he huffed, and he puffed, and he puffed, and he huffed, and at last he blew the house down, and he ate up the little pig.

The third little pig met a man with a load of bricks, and said, "Please, man, give me those bricks to build a house with." So the man gave him the bricks, and he built his house with them.

So the wolf came, as he did to the other little pigs, and said, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."

"No, no, by the hair of my chinny chin chin."

"Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in."

Well, he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, and he puffed and huffed; but he could not get the house down.


  1. Start Microsoft Word and open a new file.
    1. If you do not know how to open files, save files, or change fonts using Microsoft Word, ask an adult who usually uses the program for help.
    2. Note: This science project can be done using any other word processing program that allows embedded fonts. Just modify the instructions to open and save files using the word processor that you have. Microsoft Word for Mac does not allow embedded fonts and cannot be used for this science project.
  2. Paste the story you chose in to your new file. Or if you are writing your own story, type the story in to the new file.
  3. This will be your first file. It contains the story in the default font (the one that your word processor chooses automatically if you don't give it any instructions). Save the file to your computer.
    1. Important Note: Save your file to a brand new file folder for your science project. Save all of the text files you create in this experiment to the same file folder.
    2. Give your file a name that describes the font (like Default_Pigs).
  4. Make a new file, using the same font, but this timeembed the font.
    1. To embed fonts in Microsoft Word 2003 or earlier:
      1. On the "Tools" menu click on "Options."
      2. Click the "Save" tab.
      3. Select the "Embed TrueType fonts" check box.
      4. Make sure that the two check boxes underneath ("Embed characters in use only" and "Do not embed common system fonts") are not checked.
    2. To embed fonts in Microsoft Word 2007:
      1. Click the "Microsoft Office Button."
      2. Click "Word Options."
      3. On the "Save" tab, click to select the "Embed fonts in the file" check box.
      4. Make sure the two check boxes underneath ("Embed only the characters used in the document" and "Do not embed common system fonts") are not checked.
    3. To embed fonts in Microsoft Word 2010:
      1. Click "File." In the "File" menu, click "Save as."
      2. Click the "Tools" dropdown at the bottom of the "Save as" dialog box. Choose "Save options."
      3. Click to select the "Embed fonts in the file" check box.
      4. Make sure that the two check boxes underneath ("Embed characters only used in this document" and "Do not embed common system fonts") are not checked.
  5. Save the file, making sure to type a name for your new file that will tell you both the font type and the fact that the text is embedded (like Default_Pigs_Embedded).
    1. This new embedded text file and the original text file make a pair. The pair has two files, with the same text, using the same font. The only difference is that one has that text embedded and the other does not.
  6. Repeat steps 4–6 nine more times for a total of ten file pairs (20 individual files, half with embedded text and half with unembedded text) each using a different font.
    1. Change the font for each pair of files. In the end you will have used ten different fonts.
    2. Check your settings each time you save to make sure that you are always saving the type of file you want to (embedded or unembedded).
  7. After you have made and saved all ten of your file pairs, close Microsoft Word.
  8. Next, you will want to view the files you made to see their file size. Open the file folder where you have saved all of your science project files. Change the "View" options in the folder until you see a detailed list of all the files in there. The list should include every file's name and size in kilobytes (KB).
    1. If you cannot figure out how to change the folder view to see the file sizes, ask an adult who is familiar with the computer for help.
  9. Create a data table in your lab notebook and write down the font type and file size of each file.
Font Used Unembedded File Size (KB) Embedded File Size (KB)
Default    
Jokerman    

Table 1. Your data table should include the font and file size for all ten file pairs.

Graphing Your Data

  1. Make three bar graphs to show all your data. You can make the bar graph by hand or use a website like Create a Graph. For all of the graphs, the y-axis (the vertical one) should show a scale of file size, in KB, starting at zero and increasing to just above the size for your largest file. The x-axis (the horizontal one) should have the bars representing each file you are graphing. Make sure to label each bar with the name of the file.
  2. For the first graph, make a bar for each of the files. You should have a total of 20 bars. Arrange the bars so that file pairs appear next to each other. For example, the bar for the Jokerman_Pig files size should be right next to the bar for the Jokerman_Pig_Embedded file size.
    1. Look at the graph. Does embedding text change the file size? Why or why not?
    2. If you know how to average numbers (or can ask an adult who can show you how), calculate the average size of the embedded files and the average size of the unembedded files. Is one larger, on average, than the other?
  3. For the second graph, make a bar for each of the unembedded text files. You should have a total of ten bars.
    1. Look at the graph. What happened to the size of the file as the font style was changed?
  4. For the third graph, make a bar for each of the embedded text files. You should have a total of ten bars.
    1. Look at the graph. Did changing the font style change the file size of the embedded text files? How do your second and third graphs compare to each other?
icon scientific method

Ask an Expert

Do you have specific questions about your science project? Our team of volunteer scientists can help. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot.

Variations

  • Try comparing different font sizes or colors instead of changing the font style. Do this with both embedded and unembedded text files. Does changing the font size change the file size? How about text color?
  • Try creating your own font using a font making program like Fontifier. What happens if you make a text file using your new font and open it on a computer that does not have your new font loaded? Try doing this with both an embedded and unembedded text file. How does the file size of text using your new font (both embedded and unembedded text files) compare to file sizes using common fonts?

Careers

If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:

Career Profile
Computers are essential tools in the modern world, handling everything from traffic control, car welding, movie animation, shipping, aircraft design, and social networking to book publishing, business management, music mixing, health care, agriculture, and online shopping. Computer programmers are the people who write the instructions that tell computers what to do. Read more
Career Profile
Software quality assurance engineers and testers oversee the quality of a piece of software's development over its entire life cycle. Their goal is to see to it that the final product meets the customer's requirements and expectations in both performance and value. During the software life cycle, they verify (officially state) that it is possible for the software to accomplish certain tasks. They detect problems that exist in the process of developing the software, or in the product itself.… Read more

News Feed on This Topic

 
, ,

Cite This Page

General citation information is provided here. Be sure to check the formatting, including capitalization, for the method you are using and update your citation, as needed.

MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "Font and File Size." Science Buddies, 20 Nov. 2020, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/CompSci_p013/computer-science/font-and-file-size. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2020, November 20). Font and File Size. Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/CompSci_p013/computer-science/font-and-file-size


Last edit date: 2020-11-20
Top
We use cookies and those of third party providers to deliver the best possible web experience and to compile statistics.
By continuing and using the site, including the landing page, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
OK, got it
Free science fair projects.