Pages in a MB/GB Calculator

How to Use the Pages in a MB/GB Calculator

General.   This calculator allows members of litigation teams to more accurately estimate how many page equivalents are contained in electronic discovery files. Accurate estimates are important for budgeting purposes, as review costs for relevance, privilege and trade secrets are usually driven by the quantity of page equivalents.

Assumes Uncompressed Files.   This calculator assumes that the files to be analyzed are uncompressed.  Files can be be compressed as ZIP, RAR or other formats.  To use this calculator you should calculate based on uncompressed file size, as file compression can greatly affect the calculation.  There is also a great of variation in how efficiently files compress, with files such as text, emails and spreadsheets generally compressing to the greatest degree.  

MB Column.   Input here the number of megabytes (MB) of each file type you wish to calculate.

GB Column.   The number of megabytes from the MB column are automatically converted to gigabytes (GB).

Pages/MB Column.   This column refers to the average number of pages per MB for each specific file type.  Initial values are included for your convenience, but you can and should adjust these to reflect the specific values of your sample.

File Type  Column.   Describes the file type referred to in the row.

• Email.   Includes Outlook, Outlook Express, Lotus Notes, and other email files.  Extensions include PST, OST, DBX, MSG, NFS.

• Word Processing.   Includes Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, Open Office and similar file types.  Extensions include DOC, DOCX , WPD, RTF, ODT.

• Spreadsheets.   Includes Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, Quattro Pro, Open Office and other spreadsheet application.   Extensions include XLS, XLSX, WK1, WK2, WK3, WK4, WR1, 123, WQ1, WQ2, WKQ, ODS.

• Presentations.   Include PPT, PPTX, ODP.

• PDFs.    Refers to Adobe Acrobat files. The extension is usually PDF.

• Scanned Images.   Refers to other image based files made by various applications. Extensions include BMP, DCX, TIF, TIFF, JPG, JPEG, RAW, ODG.

• Text Files.   Refers to other text based files made by various applications. Extensions include TXT, CVS.

• Other File Types.   This refers to other file types you might have in a sample that have not been identified above.

Estimated Pages Column.   The column to the right calculates the total estimated pages for the specific file type in the row

Total Pages (Grand Total).  On the lower right of the table is the grand total of all columns.

How to Sample Data to Get your Pages/MB for Specific File Types

The pages per GB calculator depends on specific inputs of Pages per MB for each file types.  To obtain these inputs you should randomly select a number of files for each file type to sample.  Add the total MB for your sample files  and then open each sample file to determine the number of pages in each file.  Then total the MB and pages for your sample and divide to obtain your sample Pages/MB for the calculator input.  The number of files your should sample will vary depending upon the size of the sample and degree of statistical accuracy you wish to obtain with the estimate.     

Questions or Comments
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