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Comment by nottorp | Hacker News Reader

> max-width: 38rem; Now look how readable (and beautiful) it is.

How is it readable when you're limiting text width and not taking advantage of the whole screen you paid for?

[Turning 48 next month and wearing glasses.]

FYI the optimal line length is 50-75 characters and that has been the standard for text since the type writers. You don't want to move your neck when you read a single line that's kinda silly.

> that has been the standard for text since the type writers

I have a feeling it was the standard because they used the minimum font size to make the letters readable, and that's how much it fit on the physical page width. Which was standardized before typewriters for unknown historical reasons?

> You don't want to move your neck when you read a single line that's kinda silly.

I don't have to move my neck to read the article spread across the full width of my monitor. On 13" laptop or 24" desktops. Are you using a 21:9 utrawide?

It's been this way forever because it's not particularly difficult science and is extremely easy to test for so there are probably thousands of papers covering this. Here's a good summary by Baymard Institute[1].

Also WCAG recommends line length set to <80 characters too [2]. I'm not sure what else could make this more convincing or official.

1 - https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

2 - https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/visual-presentat...

> Also WCAG recommends

"recommends". Want to deny me the option of longer lines?

Just like lelanthra currently applies custom CSS `body { max-width: 38rem; }` to this page, if the page had that maximum width set by default, you would equally have the ability to apply the CSS `body { max-width: unset; }` to the page. So you would not be denied the option of longer lines.

If you have to move your head when reading text in your web browser, then your web browser’s window is too wide. Narrow it until you are comfortable, but don’t try to impose your limitations on other people.

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