For centuries, printers have used a system of points and picas to measure type and space in printed matter. A point is approximately 1/72 of an inch, and there are 12 points in a pica (about 6 picas to an inch).These measures were generally only used in the printing and publishing trades until about 20 years ago, when the era of desktop publishing put printer's type measures into the realm of anyone who used a computer.
The Independent Coast Observer's standard page layout is six columns per tabloid page, each column 9.5 picas wide, with one pica of "gutter" between columns. Pages are 15 inches tall.
Newspaper space is measured as columns wide times inches tall -- column-inches.
| 1 column (9.5 picas) | 1 9/16" (1.58") |
| 2 columns (20 picas) | 3 5/16" (3.33") |
| 3 columns (30.5 picas) | 5 1/16" (5.08") |
| 4 columns (41 picas) | 6 13/16" (6.83") |
| 5 columns (51.5 picas) | 8 9/16" (8.58") |
| 6 columns (62 picas) | 10 5/16" (10.33") |