Column Width   The text in books is generally justified (ranged both left and right), apart from looking neat; it also helps the reader to pick up the next line. In English, just about the most words we can comfortably handle per line is ten (or 60 characters), before we start skipping lines and disturbing our reading flow. When a column is too wide, and you've read to the end of a line, you then need to work your way back to the left hand edge. If you then manage to pick up the correct line, you're lucky. Almost as bad are narrow columns; large white holes start to appear as the line is forced to fit the column, there is also a greater chance of "widows" appearing (a single word on the last line of a paragraph). Check your tabloid newspaper to see how bad this can get. Newspapers do this because it is easier and faster to juggle narrow elements to fill their page.