In order to plan the performance of heat treatment of metal workpieces before the beginning of the heat treatment in the particular industrial furnace and perform it autonomously thereafter, the invention proposes a method and computer program and an apparatus having a computer (1) for the automatic preparation of technological formulas for the heat treatment, firstly loading parameters of a selected material of the metal workpiece and a formula structure template of a selected treatment method from a material databank (10) and providing data from a user interface and compiling a formula structure, then establishing the parameters of the metal workpiece, the compiled formula structure, and the data from the user interface as values of formula segments, from which the technological formula for heat treatment is finally generated, this technological formula being able to be readjusted, stored in a program databank (12), and retrieved for the heat treatment of metal workpieces in industrial furnaces (5)(FIG. 1).