The Boston Herald announced plans to lay off 130 to 160 employees this summer and outsource its printing to presses in Chicopee and Norwood by September.

Herald President and Publisher Patrick J. Purcell announced the decision to employees, citing the newspaper’s failing 50-year-old press as motivation for the decision.

Dow Jones & Co.’s Chicopee plant, nearly 100 miles west of Boston, which also prints The Wall Street Journal, will print the paper every day except Friday, when its press is not available, and Boston Offset in Norwood, which also prints USA Today, will print Saturday’s Herald.

Purcell said the distance from Chicopee to Boston will negatively impact delivery of only a few editions.

Purcell planned to meet with Herald staff members and individual union representatives to discuss the outsourcing.

“All I've ever wanted to do is make the Herald as competitive and successful as I can and to preserve Boston as a two-newspaper town,” he said. “We've done that, and I want to continue doing that."

The publisher did not indicate where remaining employees will relocate, however, the Herald last August announced plans to develop a six-acre Boston property it owns.