AFTER DEADLINE

By Saundra Keyes

Your Advertiser will look different starting Monday, June 7, the first day of its transition to printing at our new press facility at Kapolei.

When that transition is complete in August, you'll be reading a redesigned, crisply printed newspaper that is filled with color — the most exciting transformation The Advertiser has made in its nearly 150-year history in Hawai'i.

Those of us who work in the newsroom can't wait for the day you'll see our photographers' and artists' work in print with the same clarity and vibrant color that we can see now on our computer terminals.

"If only we could print this at Kapolei," has become a common phrase as we look at our favorite photos on deadline each night.

Our colleagues in advertising are equally excited about the state-of-the-art reproduction they'll be able to deliver for their customers, while our Circulation Department colleagues are eager to show off the entire newspaper's improved quality.

Our colleagues in the press room, who have been working daily miracles to minimize the deficiencies of our aging presses, are delighted that they can soon turn that energy to maximizing the advantages of our new ones.

In fact, there's no department at The Advertiser that isn't buzzing in anticipation of what the new presses will mean to all of us, to our readers and to our customers.

And there's no department that isn't working at full speed on the numerous and interrelated changes involved in shifting from one press facility to another.

Today, for example, in an intricately choreographed changeover, our Technology Department is removing the typeface you're reading now from our computers and installing the new fonts we've chosen to highlight the Kapolei presses' reproduction quality.

You'll be reading the new typeface and seeing our redesign beginning tomorrow, but it will be printed on our existing press. That's because we are shifting our printing to Kapolei one or two sections at a time, a phase-in schedule that is common when large newspapers move from old to new presses.

For all of us, and especially for the crews who will operate the new presses, taking maximum advantage of our new color capability requires learning new operations. And exciting though that is, it requires some time for trial and error.

Our gradual shift of sections to Kapolei will allow time for our learning curve. And it will create some temporary oddities in your newspaper.

For example, we're redesigning the entire Advertiser tomorrow because it would be a technological nightmare to produce papers with some sections using our current typefaces and others using our new ones.

The new text typeface, designed specifically for newspaper use, looks terrific when printed on the Kapolei presses. But like everything, and despite our talented press crews' best efforts, it's not as clear on the current press.

We're asking you to bear with us between now and August, as you get some sections with the new typeface printed on the new presses and some with it printed on the older ones.

Some of our company's special publications will be printed at Kapolei starting this week, while news sections will be printed there starting later in June.

That's when you'll see another big change.

Our new presses were designed for the slightly narrower page size that has become the newspaper-industry standard. Reader groups that evaluated sample pages earlier this year loved the new size, saying it would be easier to read and handle on the bus or at the breakfast table.

Between now and August, as printing shifts gradually to Kapolei, you'll get some sections at the new size and some — still printed on our current presses — that are the size you're holding now.

By summer's end, we expect that your Advertiser will be printed entirely at the Kapolei facility. And we expect that you're going to like the new look as much as we do.

Meanwhile, we promise to keep you posted on each stage of the changeover and to welcome your feedback on what we're doing.

Saundra Keyes is editor of The Honolulu Advertiser. Reach her at 525-8080 or skeyes@honoluluadvertiser.com.