Fifteen years after it became the first North American broadsheet newspaper to cut its web width to 50 inches, the Toronto Star is in the process of whittling its doublewide presses to 46 inches in a project to be completed this fall.

The Star is using crews from MAN Roland Inc. and its own staffers to reconfigure its six 12-unit ColorMAN presses to accommodate the new width. The presses, installed in 1992, sport a 22-inch cutoff.

The paper is the third North American daily to embrace 11.5-inch-wide pages, following The Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune and Anderson (S.C.) Independent-Mail, both of which made the same moves in April 2005 and December 2006, respectively (see sidebar).

Illustration: Janel Rehbein


Since 2004, when The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., pioneered the 48-inch wide web, scores of newspapers have cut their page widths, primarily to 48 inches, although many have laid the groundwork for narrower pages.

Seven Advance Inc. newspapers, meantime, are moving to 47 inches, including the Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance and Mobile (Ala.) Register.

Their primary motivation: reduce newsprint and other consumables costs.

The Star will likely be able to lop more than 10 percent from its annual bill by trimming its web, more than doubling the savings most papers realize by moving from 50 inches to 48 inches.

At the same time the Star is cutting its web, it’s also upgrading its press consoles, deploying software from Harland Simon.

The vendor will install its Prima management and associated press control software to automatically manage ink to be applied to the reduced pages, said John Staiano, senior vice president of Harland Simon.

Throughout the conversion project, “press operators won’t have to do anything differently,” he said, adding that the software will be able to dynamically determine whether ink is earmarked for a 12.5-inch-wide page or an 11.5-inch page. “If press 1 is already at 46 and press 2 isn’t, operators don’t have to make any adjustments; the software knows what’s going on between the different web widths,” Staiano said.

The Star last upgraded its control consoles in 2000.