: Re: Why are papers printed in a two column format? Is there a reason or is it arbitrary/tradition?

@Pierce369

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There's long-standing rules of thumb, and now quite good psychological research, to indicate that ease of reading requires limited line length. The rule of thumb is somewhere in the neighborhood to 43 to 60 characters per line, or around ten words per line in English.

Newspaper and magazine print is usually around 10 pitch, ie, 10 characters average per inch. Printable space on a page is usually around 6 inches wide in a letter-sixed page, 4.5 inches in a digest, 10-12 inches wide in a newspaper (tabloid vs the other format whatever the hell it's called) and the number columns of print is somewhere around (inches × pitch)/50.

(Speaking of references, the wiki page is actually quite good.)

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