As The Greeneville Sun announced in a front-page news article on Saturday, readers will notice that in some ways there is a different "look" about the appearance of today's issue of the Sun.

Some of the changes are what in newspaper jargon are called "design" matters. These are the ones that affect the appearance of a page -- for instance, headlines, section headings, etc.

A second type of change that is taking effect today is that the width of each page is a little narrower than it has been before. Previously, the width has been 12.5 inches; beginning today, the width of each page will be 11 inches.

The changes in the Sun's physical appearance are the results of a year-long process of taking a fresh look at the newspaper and doing some "fine tuning" that we believe makes the paper look better and more consistent in its appearance from section to section.

Many members of the newspaper staff have worked together on these issues, in a working partnership with widely known newspaper design specialist Ed Henninger, of South Carolina, coordinated at the Sun by Assistant Managing Editor Rich Jones.

Of many ideas suggested and discussed during these months, the ones that have been adopted and used are the ones that we felt made the most sense in terms of the newspaper's appearance and its convenience and usability for readers.

Staff members who have played especially important roles in the implementation of the changes include Paginator Hala Watson; Assistant Managing Editor Jones; Dawn Gibson, Systems Manager for Jones Media Inc., the parent company of the Sun; and Composing Dept. Production Manager Taunya Jones.

Examples of some of the new features you'll see are:

* the new nameplate, or "flag," at the top of this page, which we believe is more in keeping with Greeneville's historic heritage, and the fact that The Greeneville Sun's own roots go back to 1879;

* the new Contents box at the bottom of this page, which is intended to make it a bit easier for readers to find sections they're looking for inside the paper;

* and the new headings at the top of the Sports, Living, and Maturity sections, which are intended to emphasize the distinctiveness of each section while still maintaining a consistent typographic style for all sections.

The names of two sections of the Sun have been changed. "Editorial" will now be called "Opinion," and "Religion," which appears each Friday, will now be called "Faith." We felt that these modifications did a somewhat better job of capturing the themes of the two sections.

There are also some changes in headline styles, etc.

Two things that have not changed are the sections themselves:

* no section has been dropped, or changed to a different day;

* familiar sections and features are in their traditional locations in the paper.

For instance, a list of the day's obituaries will continue to appear on the front page, and the obituaries themselves will continue to be published on the first continuation page from the front page.

This means that, just as before, obituaries will usually be on Page A-6.

Editor John M. Jones Jr. explained the thinking behind the various changes in the physical appearance of the paper in the front-page news article last Saturday.

"It was not -- and is not -- our goal to make dramatic changes in the familiar 'look' and 'feel' of the paper.

"Instead, we were striving to bring to the Sun a fresher, more updated, and more attractive appearance in several ways, and we hope our readers and advertisers will feel that we have achieved what we set out to do.

"In any case, we're interested in knowing what they think!"

The change in the width of the page is a modification that, frankly, is being made mainly for the purpose of reducing operating expense at a time when the entire national economy, including the newspaper industry itself, is undergoing a major period of trial.

At the time that the process of considering design changes was begun in early 2008, economic conditions were different from the way they have been in the last six months, and we had not given very much thought to reducing the page width.

Conditions grew much worse for the entire economy beginning in September, of course, and we, like many other newspapers around the state and nation, took a look at the issue of page width as a way of helping keep our costs down.

As we looked into that possibility, we found that the new 11-inch page size is rapidly becoming the standard throughout the newspaper industry, and this seemed to be the logical time for the Sun to make the change, which has also been made in several other Jones Media community newspapers in the last few weeks.

General Manager Steve Harbison and Circulation & Printing Director Dale Long have coordinated the change to the narrower page width at the Sun.

Readers familiar with the Knoxville News Sentinel may recall that the News Sentinel moved to the 11-inch page size last year, and many other newspapers have made or are making the same changeover.

Although expense reduction is the main purpose of this step, many readers in communities where the slightly narrower page size is now being used say that they find the narrower size more convenient to handle.

"To summarize," Jones said, "our goal in the design modifications is to give our readers news, plus plenty of other interesting, useful and enjoyable information, plus many advertising messages, and do it in an overall 'package' that is both attractive to the eye and easy to use.

"We also hope that our readers will find they like the slightly narrower page size.

Jones added, "Finally, we ask readers for their patience as we make these changes.

"Much effort has gone into making the transition as smooth as possible.

"Even so, working the changes into our daily operations has been a complicated and challenging process from a technical standpoint.

"In some ways, that process is still going on as we get used to doing some things differently.

"Thanks in advance for your patience, and your support. We welcome your ideas about the changes, or anything else!"