[nyssos]

> The extra column next to the one I'm reading introduces a lot of visual noise

Papers are generally not read start to finish in one go: there's lots of rereading and jumping back and forth between key parts, and anything that moves them further apart makes this harder.

[FredPret]

Ah, that makes more sense. I imagined scientists just reading the whole thing start-to-finish.

I still think a flexible layout is best. If you like multi-columns and have a wide screen, why not display 12 columns next to each other?

With PDF this is not possible. With HTML the content can in principle be sliced and diced how you like it.

[fuck_google]

One can also view PDF pages side by side, which works pretty well with a 4K monitor.

[arp242]

I need to scroll up and down a lot more with two-column layout because a single page doesn't fit on my screen in my chosen font size (which is fairly large).

But HTML is so much more flexible, and ideally people can choose how they want it, although at this point it seems that's not (yet) implemented.

I find jumping back and forth is always a pain on computer screens and ebooks by the way, and is the major reason I much prefer print for this type of thing.