DOCUMENTATION FOR "HED.BA"

(A program to assist harried editors in writing newspaper headlines.) 

(Developed by Steve Caine [72247,1272] and stored in CompuServe's M100SIG.) 

There's nothing more frustrating than trying to be creative in limited space; 
particularly when you don't know just how much space you really HAVE. 

Any publication that has to depend on an outside source for typesetting and 
printing can be especially troubled by this--you don't really know how some-
thing will look until it comes back to you. 

Digital Review is a biweekly newspaper covering the world of DEC and DEC-
compatible computing that is published by the Ziff-Davis chain. Its editorial 
offices are in Boston. Since we went from our monthly magazine to biweekly 
tabloid newspaper format this summer, our lead time for preparing editorial 
copy has been shortened--drastically. 

I wrote this program so I could write headlines with some assurance they 
would FIT, without having to wait until copy came back from the typesetters. 

We have three basic headline sizes for  news columns at Digital Review: 

  A--32 points on 32 pts. of leading 
  B--24 pts. on 24 pts. of leading 
  C--20 pts. on 20 pts. of leading 

(A pica is 1/6 of an inch, and a point is 1/12 of a pica, or 1/72 of an inch.) 

Our pages are 59 picas wide, divided into 4 columns of 14 picas each (plus 
a 1-pica "gutter" of white space between each column), or 5 columns of 
11 picas each (with 1-pica gutter). 

I measured the width in points of each character (letters, numbers and a few 
special symbols) used in our headlines in the largest head size (32/32pts.) 
and stored these values in a file called LET.DO. HED.BA reads these and  
stores them in memory. 

As you write a headline, HED.BA refers to these values to calculate and show 
the total length of a headline (in picas) as you write. A fudge factor 
is used for headlines of sizes other than the 32pt. head on which the letter 
widths are based. If your headline  runs wider than the allotted space, 
the program "beeps" a warning. HED.BA ignores any characters that do not 
have a width stored in LET.DO, and will beep to let you know this. 

Since some stories take different headline styles and sizes, I have 
included a feature to enter the point size of an unusual head directly. 

If you hold down the SHIFT key as you choose a head size or point size, the 
program bypasses the menu that asks you to enter a column width for the 
headline you are writing. The program won't beep unless you go over 59 
picas, the full width of a page. 

Naturally, you can change the menus, headline point sizes and other values 
to suit your own application. Use the largest type size when you measure 
individual letter widths, in order to limit measuring error. 

Have fun. Let me know how you like it. 
        Steve Caine
        [72247,1272]