WELCOME to the new compact world of the Examiner, the start of a significant new chapter in our long, continuing story.

First impressions are important and we hope that today you like what you see.

Don't be put off by the more fashionable "clothes", at heart we still aim to be the same old friend as before.

Market research told us that three quarters of our readers would prefer the new shape.

It's easier to read in confined spaces on public transport and for technical reasons means that we can bring you more of the colour that 21st century audiences have rightly come to expect.

It won't quite allow us to meet the joke newspaper definition of being black and white and red all over - but it will give scope as never before to our talented team of photographers and we're sure you will notice that difference.

As far as the words are concerned, yes sometimes the new format will force us to be snappy as we tell you the news - and no bad thing in the modern world where time itself sometimes seems in short supply.

But in news and sport we will still give you the same features you have come to love (and one or two new ones as well), often in depth.

We have gone out of our way to make sure that as far as possible the familiar articles will retain that familiar feel with the same typefaces and the same style of headings.

And we have tried to make it easy for you to find your old favourites in the new package.

In short we hope you will soon feel at home with the new format. After all you have had 25 years' practice with the Saturday Examiner in this shape.

Above all we promise we won't fall into the "tabloid trap" of sensationalising stories.

As always, our brief is to "tell it like it is". The same precepts about the policy of honesty etc still stand proudly on the leader page and still guide us.

In all the changes we hope we have never lost sight of the fact that you the customers are still the important ones.

That's why we are kicking off a new era hoping to give you the best of the old and the new.

In a new-look Examiner that's big news in a colourful, compact form, bursting with ideas and keen to give you good old-fashioned value for money.