Name tags and table cards: type the names, print, cut

What is on a sheet

• Name tags, 8 on a sheet: 2 across and 4 down. On paper each is about 3.6 inches wide and 2.4 inches high (about 9 by 6 centimetres).
• Smaller name tags, 10 on a sheet: 2 across and 5 down, each about 3.6 inches wide and 1.9 inches high (about 9 by 5 centimetres).
• Table cards, 2 on a sheet. Each is folded across the middle and stands like a tent, about 7.2 inches wide and 2.4 inches high (about 18 by 6 centimetres), with the name on both faces. On the sheet the upper face is upside down, so that it reads the right way up once the card is folded.
• Small words above and under every name, if you type them: up to 40 characters each, on one line. Long ones are made smaller until they fit.
• Empty ones, up to 30, for people who are not on the list: they carry the small words and no name.
• Lines of long dashes to cut along, and on a table card a line of dots to fold along. Nothing else: no picture, no date, no name of this site.

How the names are made large

• Each name is tried on 1 line and on 2. For 2 lines the page finds the break that makes the wider line as narrow as it can be. It keeps whichever gives the larger letters, and 1 line when they come out the same.
• Letters stop at about four tenths of the tag’s height. A short name such as Al or Bo does not grow past that.
• Words are not split. One very long word has to fit the width whole, so its letters come out small.
• Up to 60 names of 30 characters. A longer name is cut at 30, names after the 60th are left out, and the page says how many. The same name twice is kept twice.
• Every name the same size, if you tick it: every name is then as small as the longest one has to be.
• A margin of about 4 millimetres is kept clear inside every tag.

Paper, scissors and pins

• Each sheet is one page, upright, with a margin of half an inch that home printers leave white. The drawing fits Letter paper and A4.
• 8 tags fill one sheet, 9 take two. The 60 names and 30 empty ones together are 12 sheets of name tags, 9 sheets of the smaller ones, or 45 sheets of table cards.
• A paper tag needs something to hold it: tape, a pin, a clip or a plastic holder. The page does not know the size of any holder. Print one sheet and try it before you print many.
• Plain paper is thin. A table card stands up better in heavier paper, if your printer takes it.
• The letters are your device’s own plain letters (Arial, Helvetica or the nearest it has), so the shapes can differ a little from one device to another. The page measures them on your device before it sets the size.
• It has been tried in one browser’s print preview (Chromium, saved as PDF), not on paper from a real printer.

What this page does not do

• It does not line up with sticker sheets or label sheets from a shop. It is made for plain paper and scissors.
• It does not read the names: it cannot tell whether they are spelled the way their owners spell them. Read the sheets over before you cut.
• It cannot give one name its own small words: the words above and under are the same on every tag.
• It has no pictures, no logos and no colors other than black and white.
• It keeps nothing: close the page and the list of names is gone.
• A tag shows a name to everyone in the room. An empty tag lets a person write the name they want to be called.

Every time the page is built, a program checks 16 examples worked by hand. Then it makes up 1,500 lists of names, long and short, with accents, small words and empty tags, and draws each the way the page draws it. A second reader, written separately, takes every tag back off the drawing. It checks that every name typed is there, in order and once; that every line is inside its tag’s margin and inside its own room; that two lines of a name do not meet; that the name stands in the middle; that both faces of a table card say the same; and that no name could be larger. The program uses made-up letter widths; the widths of real letters come from your device, and those were tried in one browser only.