A format shift by the Chicago Tribune is on the cards - Monday onwards, the paper is repackaging itself in an 'easier to hold' tabloid-size. The compact edition will cater to weekday single-copy sales at retail outlets like newsstands and newspaper boxes in the city and its suburbs, and commuter stations.

The Chicago Tribune, along with the Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun, is published by Tribune Co., which is a newspaper-and-television concern.

Apart from some slight variations in headlines, captions and photos, the editorial content of the tabloid-size Chicago Tribune will be the same as established broadsheet edition for the home-delivery subscribers. The cost of the paper too remains unchanged at 75 cents.

Commenting on the need for the tabloid edition of the paper, the Chicago Tribune publisher Tony Hunter said: "Years of research showed that one impediment to people buying us on the go is our format." Hunter added the tabloid indicates that the paper is giving people, in the single-copy area, a product that comes in a format they desired.

The tabloid version of the Tribune opens up a fresh front in its existing rivalry with the Chicago Sun-Times, owned by Sun-Times Media Group Inc. Countering the attack of having imitated its rival by starting a tabloid, a spokesman for the Chicago Tribune said: "The Sun-Times didn't invent the tabloid-sized format."

Meanwhile, the Sun-Times spokeswoman Tammy Chase, reminding that imitation the sincerest form of flattery, added "sure, size matters, but so is what you do with it."