(column width) by (inch height) ad," replacing the words in parentheses () with a single figure. This can be confusing because it refers to two distinct measurements as if they were measured with the same unit. Normally one would think a 3 by 6 advertisement would be 3 inches wide by 6 inches high — but in reality it's actually about 5.5 inches wide by 6 inches high. In writing, an "×" is usually used to separate the two figures. Whether written or spoken, most, if not all, newspaper professionals understand the first figure is the column width and the second figure is the inch height. Nowadays, most newspapers and magazines have converted to a "modular" system that simplifies ad size and eliminates the need to figure out column inches. In a modular system ad sizes are represented by the amount of the total page the ad takes up. For example, 1/2 page, 1/4 page, 1/8 page, etc. This has been a popular system among many newspapers because it simplifies the layout process (i.e. less ad sizes to fit in newspaper) and makes pricing much easier for an advertiser to understand. Use and number of words Column inches are also used as an ad hoc estimate of the importance of a news story and are also used to tell how much copy a reporter should write or has written, and how much should be cut from a story to fit the available space. This harks back to the days of the late 19th century linotype machine and its relatively uniform newspaper column-widths, echoed in the phototypesetting and paste up days of the late 20th Century, when typeset newspaper stories were still printed on long strips of paper one-column wide, then pasted into page layouts. Even when pages were designed using various wider column widths, story lengths were still estimated "as if" set in the standard narrower columns. Correspondents, for example, might be paid "by the inch" for their stories, and some organizations explained their nickname Stringer (journalism) as originating when regular-width columns of set type were measured with lengths of string. The software used in most present-day newsrooms still measures column inches to give reporters and editors an estimate on how much space a story will take up on a page. Reporters usually refer to story lengths in inches, which actually refers to how many column inches a story takes