The announcement from the group, whose titles include the Daily Mirror, The People, The Daily Record and The Sunday Mail, leaves Richard Desmond's Express Newspapers as the only national newspaper publisher yet to announce full-colour plans.

At an investor's conference yesterday, Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey said that the investment programme would steal a march on News International's 600m investment in full-colour presses. Both are due to complete during 2008.

"We reckon that puts us well ahead of our nearest rival and at a fraction of their cost. These are the benefits of our networked approach to manufacturing," she said.

News International has not yet secured planning permission for its major site in Waltham Cross, although that is likely to be granted on Tuesday (2 August).

Trinity Mirror's announcement will also allow The Independent to move to full-colour printing by 2008, as it contract prints at the group's Watford, Oldham and Cardonald Park sites.

Associated Newspapers' 96m investment in flexo press capacity at Didcot in Oxfordshire and Harmsworth Quays in London is also due to complete in 2008, taking the Daily Mail full-colour by that date.

The Telegraph Group has announced that it will spend 150m to move to full-colour by 2008, but is not known to have made any firm plans as to how to achieve that ambition.

The Guardian, meanwhile, will be the first national newspaper to print in full-colour when it moves to the Berliner format, printed at Newsfax and Trafford Park Printers, this autumn.

Story by Josh Brooks