A glitch at the printers meant the phone listings were printed in 6-point type, instead of 6.5-point, the Edmonton Journal reported Tuesday. Not only that, but a lighter font type was used, making it even harder to read. Phone books in Victoria, British Columbia, also were affected, the newspaper said.

"It was not our intention to have it come out like that," said Paul Batchelor, vice president of sales for Alberta and British Columbia for the Yellow Pages Group that is in charge of printing phone books across Canada outside Saskatchewan. "We made some production changes, and when we saw how it came out we were surprised as much as anyone else."

Yellow Page listings were not affected.

In 2006, the change was deliberate, partly to reduce the number of pages to 1,000 from 1,400. This time the shrinkage was minimal, Batchelor said.