A control mechanism for disabling selected driven ink metering elements in rotary printing machines from a central remote control station is disclosed. The control includes plural command switches which are operated to provide control signal inputs to a programmable microprocessor. The microprocessor is connected to the drive circuits for the individual ink metering elements to position them in response to the selected control signals to increase or decrease the amount of ink supplied by each element individually or jointly, and to disable selected ink metering elements by moving them to a zero position so as to select the width of the printing area.