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Definitely the two columns for me. It's super annoying skimming a paper and having to scroll down and back up again in a zig-zag pattern.

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I think the consuming device matters. A ipad or computer have much wider screen width. One column layout is too wide for them for average people to scan text lines quickly.

While it looks perfectly fine on a phone. Two columns layout looks terrible on a smartphone, the text is too tiny to read comfortably.

It would probably be even better if you can flip it left and right like a ebook instead of scrolling to allocate the content faster. But current design is good enough IMO. (Compare to reading a pdf on cellphone)

Just zoom the smartphone into one column. Problem solved.

And then you will have to scroll both top bottom and left right, a even worst experience.

It's about "One column layout is too wide" - if you zoom, it's not too wide anymore, also smartphones have narrow screen, not wide, and tablets can do that too afaik.

Scrolling like that is not hard in smartphone format imo

To display two column layout you need a tall screen, now wide. If you display two column layout on a short wide screen, you have to scroll it up and down in zigzag pattern to read one page.

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