The issue is not the size of the text (which is small but still legible) but the line length -- that is, how wide the lines are. If lines are too long, then reading becomes an exhausting experience as you sweep your eyes back and forth across the page like a lighthouse.
It's not really possible to enforce line-length with a user stylesheet (increasing the point size doesn't solve the problem, it just balloons the letters up to goofy proportions). This page just needs max-width set somewhere on the text container.
It's still a problem with web user agents, not with the website.
> This page just needs max-width set somewhere on the text container.
So, set max-width on body in your user.css?
Personally I've long since stopped reading the web in "full screen" -- I'm more than a little surprised that people still do that. Assuming you're reading text, why would you want to have to move your eyes across the entire screen to take it in? Much better to have an appropriately sized window IMNHO.
Yeah... and doing it on the whole body would be fatiguing on long pages because you have to scroll up and down the whole page after each column. I'd probably want to do column-split content areas over a certain width (e.g. an <article> or something).
I played around with columns a few years ago[0] after I first saw them being used. I use some JS to keep the containing div the same height as the window and hook into scroll events. This was several years ago fairly soon after columns were being implemented and I'm sure there's a better way of doing it today.
Impossible. Because you cannot assume user's taste.
Also, if you think readability is not a taste, and you can make a mostly ideal configuration which can be applied to all the users, why don't you let the browser vendors to do that?
If browsers are shipped with ideal configuration by default, then now the only obstacle to prevent ideal readability is site-prodivded styling.
Actually Safari is trying to do this via Reader button, and shows always great result if it is available.
It's not really possible to enforce line-length with a user stylesheet (increasing the point size doesn't solve the problem, it just balloons the letters up to goofy proportions). This page just needs max-width set somewhere on the text container.