You can tell when you're on the verge of geezerdom when your stories about the "good old days" begin causing the eyes of younger co-workers to glaze over.

I'm finding that to be the case more and more, as I feel a duty to tell young members of the Star-Tribune news staff just how easy they have it when compared with my early days in the newspaper business.

When I started working during summers as a teenager at my hometown paper during the late '70s, I wrote stories on a manual typewriter, not on a computer with Internet access. I processed film and made photo prints in a darkroom; there were no digital cameras back then. Our photos, even on the front page, appeared only in black and white. We designed pages by cutting and pasting pieces of photographic paper using hot wax, not on computer screens. Forget about cell phones, computerized archives - or, for that matter, the now largely outdated fax machines.

And we had to walk five miles to and from work in deep, deep snow.

OK, so I made up that last part. But there's no denying that the newspaper business, like many others, has changed significantly in the past 30 years.

One area where the change has been less dramatic is the actual printing of the newspaper. Putting ink on paper in mass quantities still requires the use of an offset press - a large, intricate machine whose operators need training and expertise. We have a great pressroom crew at the Star-Tribune, and they work hard to produce the best-looking newspaper possible.

While the basic printing technology has been the same for decades, the printed product itself has seen some changes as well.

Years ago, most newspapers around the country were big, wide things that nearly covered the breakfast table. Over the years, in an effort to increase efficiency and for ease of handling, newspaper widths have decreased. Now, in an era of rising newsprint prices and other economic pressures, newspapers across the country are further trimming their widths.

The Star-Tribune is no exception.

Starting with tomorrow's paper, you'll notice our pages are skinnier. The depth of the page won't change - just the width. That change will allow us to use less paper, helping compensate for rising paper costs. I think you'll also find that the newspaper is easier to handle and read.

One thing you won't find is a significant drop in the amount of news in the paper. The move to a narrower page has provided us an opportunity to make some other changes in the Star-Tribune's appearance, and one of the primary goals was to largely maintain the volume and breadth of coverage to which readers are accustomed.

Our page-design expert, news editor Wes Watson, has worked for months to create our new "look," and I'm confident you'll like what you see. Expect a bolder, more colorful design.

We have changed some of the fonts, or the style of type, we use. But we didn't change the size of the type, after testing several different possibilities. Actually, I think you'll find the type at least as easy to read as what you have seen from us the last few years.

As I get older, I become more concerned about readability for aging eyes. Toward that end, I'm happy to report that we're increasing the size of our crossword puzzle. We're keeping all of our comics, and some of them will also be larger.

This is a challenging, yet exciting, time to work at a newspaper. As I have written before, the Internet has given us expanded opportunity to serve readers with breaking news, video and more. At the same time, we're working hard to make sure our printed product is fresh and engaging, without sacrificing the features people count on us to provide.

As always, you're welcome to let me know how you think we're doing.

Do you have a question or a comment for Editor Chad Baldwin? You can call him at 266-0545, or send e-mail to chad.baldwin@trib.com.