Our new Kodak computer to plate technology was uncrated on Friday. This will eliminate the need for film and will eventually bring you better quality printing of our newspapers.

On Sunday night after getting the Dowagiac Daily News printed, our old film image setter refused to work. It was almost like it knew we were abandoning it soon. So we printed outside at the Papers in Milford, Ind., which is a three-hour round trip.

Monday morning, our Kodak installer helped us get the old image setter working again. It lasted one night. Sadly on Tuesday night it provided error messages that didn’t exist and streaking on the film when it did spit it out. After hours of encouragement we gave up on it. Our friends at the South Bend Tribune were far closer and willing to print. Unfortunately we didn’t ask and they didn’t tells us that our pages would be tiny and hard to read for those with eyesight such as mine.

Sometimes life isn’t easy here in Leaderland. Kodak, and our optimistic Leader crew are working hard to be able to use the new equipment two days earlier than expected. If today’s newspaper print quality is a little off, my apologies. We will continue to tweak and improve and we expect you will see the best color and print quality we have ever produced.

I will be spending the remainder of my week in Fergus Falls, Minn. reviewing our budget for the next fiscal year beginning in October. We have all sorts of improvements in store.  I’ll discuss them here in my column further in the coming weeks.