At the moment it is like reading a newspaper with only one column right across
the page. It is a very awkward reading experience.

At least make an option to display list with limited width.

@Aleksander have you tried the userstyles item mentioned further down? It's a band-aid, but might work for you until the TOR crew wrap their heads around Page Layout 101

Current page width makes The Old Reader totally unreadable for me.
That's a pity, because I prefer it's simplicity over Feedly. Still, there is no way I am going to use this having to track such lines, this is extremely uncomfortable and unnatural. Please fix this.

I agree with Charles Taylor - the KB article is trying to be all jokey, but comes over as insulting. Does TOR think Google Reader (not to mention basically every block of text since Gutenberg's days) added a max-width to paragraphs for shits & giggles?

Quite frankly, the Knowledge Base response to this is insulting.

Obviously we can resize the window, that's not what people are asking for. People are asking for you to make the main window readable. This is a world of multi-tab browsing, and asking people to make a change to accommodate your site when their current window setup works fine for literally every other site they go to is bizarre.

How many blogs do you see that run the text right to the edge of the page?

How many books have no margin?

There's a reason why we have margins, columns, etc. Past a certain size, books move to a multi-column layout, because reading extremely long lines of text is uncomfortable and unpleasant.

Also, reading text that goes right to the edge is similarly uncomfortable and unpleasant, and resizing the window does nothing for this - each line is shorter, but still awkwardly goes right to the edge of the screen...

I - as many people - are looking for an alternative to GR, and thought I'd found it in TOR - but this is a deal-breaker. I was reading a post, and was displeased without knowing why, until I realized my eyes were traveling a good ten inches back and forth - far more than is comfortable.

This is just such obviously bad web design - no site has full-width text. It's horrendous.

I really can't say enough, strongly enough, on this issue.

The extra wide feed column is the number one thing I find annoying about TOR, otherwise it's a great alternative to GR (especially if/when it gets a mobile app). I really can't read the articles in a wide format, and it's highly annoying that I can't adjust it. It's also annoying that the suggestion from the knowledge base is simply to adjust the width of the entire browser window.

Why not allow users to set the width in the settings, as a percentage of the screen? Or just make the columns adjustable by dragging? Or just give us an option to have fixed or unfixed width? It's obvious that not everyone feels that the widths should be fixed, but any of these options would satisfy those in both the for and against camps.

Also, even on this page the column of comments is perfectly sized! But when you go to the content and are reading blogs it extends all the way to the right. How annoying would it be if all these comments were just one really long line! No different for blogs!

This really bothers me too and is one reason why I still prefer Google Reader. The blogs look ridiculous with the pictures on the left and text going to the right. I have a big iMac (not the biggest, but it's large) and it's so annoying to read in The Old Reader. I end up having to click on the blog, which is what I do not want to do. It looks so clean in GoogleReader. There is no way I am resizing my browser just for one website.

I was hoping this would get fixed in the future, disappointed that it sounds like it won't be as I dislike using The Old Reader for that one reason.

I know nothing about programming, but the suggestion to have this an option in settings seems reasonable.

Try comparing the same blog post in Google Reader to The Old Reader--so much cleaner and all lined up in Google Reader. I want The Old Reader to succeed, even though I was disappointed that Google Reader is shutting down, I'm glad other places will have a chance to step in, but this is a real deterrent.

it's also possible to allow the user to set it manually by dragging the column margins

I'd wish I could somehow downvote this. Fixed width is the root of all evil!

yeeees

If you wont apply strong restriction for text width, can you add special parameter for it? Something like MaxWidth. By default MaxWidth=0 so widht is unlimited.

I totally agree

To the Old Reader folks's comment: I do think that websites actually very commonly limit the width of columns. For instance, the nytimes.com page has very large white margins on either side for that reason! (If it's good enough for the Grey Lady...). Heck, even this ticketing software has a limited column width instead of taking up the entire screen with text!

And while it's true that few people maximize page sizes on their 30" screens, I do maximize all my windows on my 13" laptop - and the current width of the Old Reader pages is just too wide.

Went ahead and wrote a quick userstyle for Stylish available here:
http://userstyles.org/styles/84630/theoldreader-word-wrap?r=1363559941

Stylish for Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe?hl=en

I too find this extremely unpleasant on the eyes.
on my 23 inch monitor at 1080p my character per line count is 223 (!?!!).
My suggestion is to introduce an option for word wrapping at either 60, 75, 90 CPL (with the ability to disble it completely.
Suggesting that readers should resize their browser to be able to read news properly is completely ridiculous and you should even consider removing it from the knowledge base article.
I can imagine that you're getting a lot of requests for features now that Google Reader is set to shut down and people's preferences may vary, but try to provide more options, especially when they make the difference between usable and non-usable.

Some resources :
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/20/typographic-design-survey-best-practices-from-the-best-blogs/ (section 7)
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/72/LineLength.asp (ironically also hard to read on a large monitor)

Yes, make this an option, please.

Could we consider making this an either/or proposition? Fixed width vs. browser-flexible width, to be chosen by each user in their Settings? Because I understand The Old Reader's position, however, I am not going to resize my whole browser -- that affects all the other tabs!

I really explicitly do NOT want this..