"The production problems that prevented us from carrying out the conversion in September have been overcome", says chief editor Benjamin J. Marrison. But we wanted to be absolutely certain that we had everything under control before relaunching the newspaper in a new format. For this reason, Marrison stated, the new equipment was tested repeatedly and we are now confident that everying is ready. The press conversion (to the so-called 3Volution Cutoff Technology) was done by Pressline Services The Columbus Dispatch will thus become the world's first newspaper to use this technique.

Jim Gore, General Manager of Pressline Services explains: "The delay was due to getting folders up to top speed with the legacy equipment, it was achieved about 30 days after the scheduled launch but by then it was too close to the holidays to move forward. It did give us and the customer much more time for testing and commissioning which makes the launch very comfortable."

According to Gore, a number of newspapers “want to come in and watch this 30 year old equipment run at 90,000 copies per hour” on Sunday night the 27th of January, when the first edition will be printed in the new format.

Among the claimed benefits, besides the 50 percent increased output (each cylinder revolution will print three pages compared to two before the conversion), are an additional two colour pages and two new sections daily. Considered as a major aspect  of the smaller page format are the new possibilities for organising content – it will be more easily possible to group related articles and information, thus giving the newspaper a more magazine-type feeling.

The reduction in page size will be used also to present contents in a more compact way. The journalists have been instructed "to present the same information in fewer words", according to the chief editor in a statement published in the mobile edition of 20 January.

See also a video on the format conversion project.