Maybe the empty space in the margin can be left for marginal notes written by the readers, if any. If the marginal materials are simply references, then the standard footnotes (at the bottom of each page, not ganged together at the end of the document) are fine. Of course, the big-column/little-column format should not be done mechanically there needs to be worthwhile material that naturally belongs in the margin. Long ago I once proposed to a client that computer manuals (with 8.5 by 11 inch paper imprisoned in 3-ring binders) follow the design of Feynman's physics textbook and stop wasting all that paper in the margin. The design of Feynman's pages are probably a better model than my books, which are so intense, idiosyncratic, and personal-and are therefore not a good workaday model for document design. For my books, the righthand margin column also often serves to help present big images that run the width of the entire page. So what should be done with that extra space on the right of the page when a single column of text is used? The design of my books and of Feynman's book puts small images, image credit lines, numbered notes, and references out in a narrow righthand column. (An unsatisfactory solution is to make the type real big to fill the horizontal width.) In general, a line of text should not be more than 2 or 3 alphabets long, unless there is spacious leading. That is too wide for a single column of type thus 2 columns of text are often used in books with an 8.5 inch page width. The problem fundamentally arises from the 8.5 inch page width. One page of that book is reproduced (rather small) in "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint." Here it is somewhat larger: Richard Feynman, Robert Leighton, and Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. On this issue more generally, take a look at the layout of
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