There is provided an apparatus and methods for stretching one or more zones (26, 27) of a web and webs including one or There is provided an apparatus and methods for stretching one or more zones of a web and webs including one or more stretched zones. Each of the stretched zones in the web is stretched in the cross-web direction, i.e., the direction (c, d) transverse to the downweb direction (m, b). The stretching can be performed continuously on the web as the web is advancing through the apparatus in the down-web direction. The method for stretching an extensible web in the cross direction generally is practiced on a substantially continuous cross-directional extensible web. The web is traveling in a first downweb direction at a first speed. The extensible web has a width and substantially continuous length in the first downweb direction. The crossweb stretching occurs in an orientation zone (26, 27) established between at least two moving nip points (28, 29, 30). The nip points are in a plane of the web with a leading nip (28) downweb of a trailing nip (29, 30) with the at least two nips offset in the cross direction. The leading nip moves at a faster speed than the trailing nip, where the degree of crossweb orientation in the orientation zone is proportional at least to a ratio of the leading nip speed to the trailing nip speed.
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