I prefer a mix of the two. Make it fluid, but use a fixed width for min-width and max-width. Reading short lines is much easier to read, that is why news papers have short columns (short as in width). Any block element can have a width set, if the element is inline you need to do display: block; Do note some CSS properties trigger display: block, like float: left / right; is an inline element, see: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/HTML:Inline_elements