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Project Summary

Difficulty	1
Time required	Very Short (a day or less)
Prerequisites	None
Material Availability	Readily available
Cost	Very Low (under $20)
Safety	No issues

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Objective

In this experiment you will 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 look any way you choose:

You can change the way letters appear by changing the font. Each font is a set of graphics that represent each letter, often called a character. The computer knows which characters to use by following a code. Each word processing application 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" by the computer program when you save the information in a file.

How does a computer remember information? They have to encode the information by using a pattern. One example is binary code, which is a pattern of zeros and ones that can be used to encode information and store it in your hard drive as a file. When you save a text file, you might choose to embed the encoded text in the file, which will change 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. The amount of space that a file uses is called the file size, and is usually measured in kilobytes (KB) or megabytes (MB).

In this experiment you will test how much memory is needed to store a simple piece of information, the story of "The Three Little Pigs." You will change the font of the story to see if the size of the file changes. Will the font change the file size? What is the difference between embedded and unembeded text files?

Terms, Concepts and Questions to Start Background Research

To do this type of experiment 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!

• letter
• character
• font
• text
• file
• memory
• kilobyte (KB)
• megabyte (MB)

• How much information is a letter?
• Does the file size change if the font changes?
• How is the size of a file measured?

Bibliography

• Each letter is a piece of information that is encoded and stored as a file in your computer. Find out about how information is stored and measured:
  T1 Shopper, 2006. "Byte Converter–File Size Calculator." [accessed: 3/10/06]
  http://www.t1shopper.com/tools/calculate/
• In computing terminology a letter is one example of a character. Find out more about characters and how they are encoded:
  Wikipedia Contributors, 2006. "Character (computer)," Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. [accessed: 3/10/06]
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_%28computing%29
• Jacobs, J., 1898. English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt, no. 14, pp. 68–72. [accessed: 3/10/06] online version http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0124.html

Materials and Equipment

• computer
• word processing software (Text Edit, Microsoft Word, Word Perfect, Claris, etc..)
• graph paper
• colored pencils or markers

Experimental Procedure

1. Open your word processing program. I can be any kind of program for writing and editing text files or documents. Some examples of editing software packages are Text Edit, Microsoft Word, Word Perfect or Claris Works.
2. Open a new document. Usually this is done by clicking on "File" and then "New..." from the file menu at the top of your screen.
3. Below is a box filled with text for the story "The Three Little Pigs":

   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.

4. Highlight the text in the box by clicking-and-dragging the cursor, or if you have a Mac by triple clicking inside the box until the complete story is highlighted. Then click "Edit" and "Copy" from the file menu at the top of your screen.
5. Paste the text into your new file by clicking inside the new document until you see a blinking cursor, then click on "Edit" and "Paste" from the file menu at the top of your screen.
6. This will be your first file. It contains the story in the default font. Save the file to your computer by clicking "File" and "Save" from the file menu at the top of your screen.
7. Type a name for your file (like defaultpigs.txt) and click the "Save" button.
8. Now you want to make a new file with a different font style. Do this by clicking "File" and "Save As" from the file menu at the top of your screen.
9. This will be your second file. Type a name for your new file that will match the type of font you want to use next (like curlzpigs.txt) and click the "Save" button.
10. Next, you want to change the font of your new file. Right now it has the old font and you want to change it to the new one, in this case Curlz. Highlight all of the text in your new file by triple clicking the text in your story, then click "Text," "Font," and then the type of Font you want "Curlz" from the file menu at the top of your screen.
11. Your new file contains the new font style, and you should see it change in your viewing window. Save the file to your computer by clicking "File" and "Save" from the file menu at the top of your screen.
12. Repeat steps 8–11 to make files with many different font styles. Remember to save each new file with a new name that reflects the font used in the file (like comicsanspigs.txt, helveticapigs.txt, etc.).
13. After you have made and saved each file you can close your word processing application.
14. Next, you will want to view the files you made by looking in the documents folder of your computer. Use the finder if you are using a Mac or the Start menu if you use a Windows PC.
15. Write down the size of each file in a data table:

    File Name	Font Used	File Size (Kb)
    defaultpigs.txt	default
    curlzpigs.txt	Curlz
    etc.
    etc.

16. Make a bar graph of your data. On the left side of the graph make a scale of file size from zero to just above your largest piece of data, in increments of 5,000 KB. For example, if my largest file size is 67,000 KB then I would make my scale go to a maximum of 70,000 KB. Draw a bar for each test file up to the number that matches the size of the file. Remember to label each bar with the number of letters in the file, label each axis, and to give your graph a descriptive title.
17. What happened to the size of the file as the font style was changed?

Variations

• Try embedding or not embedding the font when you save your file. There will be a checkbox in the File/Save window for this option. Do you get a similar result?
• Try comparing different font sizes or colors instead of changing the font style. Does changing the font size change the file size? How about text color?
• If you have more than one text editor or word processing program, you can compare the file sizes for the same text created by three different applications. Save the same text as a file in each application and compare the file sizes. Are the files the same size? Which application creates files that use the most memory? Which application creates files that use the least? How might this relate to the number of features that each application offers?

• For more science project ideas in this area of science, see Computer Science Project Ideas.

Credits

Sara Agee, Ph.D., Science Buddies

Last edit date: 2006-04-20 15:20:43

Career Focus

If you like this project, you might want to think about career opportunities in Computer Science.

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. Learn more about this career: Computer Programmer.