When finding the area of a triangle, the first step is to multiply the length times the width, in this case- 7 and 12. 7 × 12 equals 84. The next step in finding the area would be to cut the product in half, in this case- the product is 84, so you would do 84 ÷ 2. And 84 ÷ 2 is 42, hence the answer would be 42 .