# Big Words (#204)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/big-words-204/167511>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 8, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/big-words-204/167511 "2009-05-08T19:21:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danmcb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@danmcb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/danmcb)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/big-words-204/167511/1 "2009-05-08T19:21:08Z")

</div>

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## Big Words (#204)

Wassup Rubyists,

This weeks quiz was submitted by Alan.

Write a method that will return a large version of a string you provide  
it.

(Copy the output into a monospaced buffer for better viewing)

puts big\_word(‘BIGWORD’)

###### ####### ##### # # ##### ######

# # # # # # # # # # #

###### # # ### # # # # # ###### #

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

###### ####### ##### ## ## ##### # #

For extra credit you may include additional font styles, such as italic.

puts big\_word(‘BIGWORD’, ‘i’)

###### ####### ##### # # ##### ######

# # # # # # # # # # #

###### # # ### # # # # # ###### #

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

###### ####### ##### ## ## ##### # #

Have Fun!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danmcb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@danmcb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/danmcb)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/big-words-204/167511/2 "2009-05-15T23:15:44Z")

</div>

Daniel M. wrote:

> ## Big Words (#204)

This quiz immediately reminded me of FIGlet[1](http://www.figlet.org/). A reimplementation of  
FIGlet in Ruby seemed to be a sensible way to solve this quiz, taking  
into account the hundreds of fonts already available in the FIGlet  
format  
(saving me from creating my own font). Fortunately I wasn’t the first  
one to have that idea: the “Text” gem[2](http://text.rubyforge.org/) includes a Ruby implementation  
of FIGlet! So I couldn’t resist to do this:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby  
require ‘rubygems’  
require ‘text’

def big\_word(str, fontfile=‘banner.flf’)  
font = Text::Figlet::Font.new(fontfile)  
figlet = Text::Figlet::Typesetter.new(font)  
figlet[str]  
end

if **FILE** == $0  
while str = ARGV.shift  
puts big\_word(str)  
end  
end

Sample run:

reima@marvin:~/devel/ruby/quiz/204$ ./big\_word.rb “Ruby Q.”

###### 

# # # # ##### # # # # # # #

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

###### # # ##### # # # # # #

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

# # # # # # # # # # # #

# # #### ##### # #### # #### #

The font file needed to run the script can be obtained from [3](http://www.figlet.org/fonts/banner.flf). Or  
pick  
any font from the font database[4](http://www.figlet.org/fontdb.cgi) you fancy and change the file name in  
the script.

-Matthias

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danmcb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@danmcb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/danmcb)\
**Post date:** [May 17, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/big-words-204/167511/3 "2009-05-17T19:41:01Z")

</div>

This week’s quiz was solved by Matthias R… Let’s check out the  
solution:

```
require 'rubygems'
require 'text'

def big_word(str, fontfile='banner.flf')
  font = Text::Figlet::Font.new(fontfile)
  figlet = Text::Figlet::Typesetter.new(font)
  figlet[str]
end

```

Matthias uses the `Text` gem[1](http://text.rubyforge.org/) to display fonts using the FIGlet[2](http://www.figlet.org/)  
format. The `big_word` method takes an optional font file parameter to  
allow different styles. It operates by loading the file, creating a  
FIGlet Typesetter from the font, and passing the input string to the  
Typesetter. An easy to use and straightforward library.

There are a couple of prerequisites to use the program, though. You’ll  
need the `Text` gem and a font file[3](http://www.figlet.org/fonts/banner.flf). I found that when installing  
the gem, I needed to use the command `gem install Text`; the command  
with lowercase `text` wouldn’t work for me. Matthias also links to the  
FIGlet font database[4](http://www.figlet.org/fontdb.cgi) where there are some amazing fonts available.

In addition to FIGlet, the `Text` gem includes many other useful  
libraries like Metaphone and Soundex. The Metaphone component of the  
`Text` gem was used way back on Quiz #140[5](http://rubyquiz.com/quiz140.html) to sound out T-Shirts.

Thank you, Matthias, for sharing this useful library.

```
 ______  _____
/\ _`\ /\ \ /\ __`\__
\ \ \L\ \ ____ \ \ \ ______  __\ \ \/\ \__  __/\_\____
 \ \ , / /\ \/\ \ \ '__`\/\ \/\ \ \ \ \ \ \/\ \/\ \/\ \/\_ ,`\
  \ \ \\ \\ \ \_\ \ \ \L\ \ \ \_\ \ \ \ \\'\\ \ \_\ \ \ \/_/ /_
   \ \_\ \_\ \ ____/\ \_,__ /\/` ____\ \ \___ \_\ \ ____/\ \_\/\____ \
    \/_/\/ /\/ ___/ \/___ / `/ ___/> \ \/__ //_/\/ ___/ \/_/\/____ /
                               /\___/
                               \/__/

```