Hi,

Anything I can do to make this text even more readable?

I have been thinking of increasing the line-height, but I am not sure whether that would do more harm than good. I am using 1.225 * font-size now.

I am also questioning the paragraph opening boxes/indents (which does not work in Internet Explorer, sadly).

The text is designed for Firefox 2. I have not tried it with other user agents yet.

I'd surround the whole thing in a padded div just so the left and right edges of the text don't butt up against the left and right edges of the browser window.

Other than that, nothing.

I realize the text you have is just placeholder text, but shorter paragraphs would improve readability. Headings would help make the page more scanable, which will also improve readability. So would a little color in the added headings.

Other than that I would really need to see the text incorporated into a design.

Would you recommend a dark, or a bright color for the headings?

Headers should be easily distinguished from the content.
This doesn't necessarily mean another color but that mostly is the best solution.
I always make important text a little bit lighter, bold and bigger.

The color would depend on the rest of the design. I'm assuming there will ultimately be more than just the text. Either dark or bright could work. It would need to work with the rest of the colors in the design.

Mark is right too in that to stand out the heading simply needs to be distinguished from the rest of the text. Color is one way, size can be another. You could also use a different font. Anything to distinguish it. I chose color as a differentiator since at the moment the only colors being used are black and white.

A large block of text should not be strong - it makes it harder to read and strains the eyes. Only embolden one phrase at a time, not a block paragraph.

I usually use this rule of thumb: Serif fonts at 14px (or equivalent ems, pts, etc etc) with 170% line height and sans-serif fonts at 13px (same again) with 150% line-height. Serif fonts are generally easier on the eyes and make it easier to read - why? Because of the accents they have (the little flicks) that guide you from one letter and word to the next. Sans-serif font's are better used for attention grabbing (like headings and links) and for shorts (small, concise paragraphs).

Our eyes move naturally from left to right in a guided area (in other words a box) and are comfortable at eye-level (or directly ahead). Therefore, it stands to reason that you should have your text on the left hand side, spanning between 40% and 60% of the screen width. It can be smaller, but you need to increase contrast between it and the other sections to improve attention and concentration.

Contrast focuses our eyes, and guides them. It stands to reason that there should be plenty of contrast at the edge of the section you're wanting to increase readability at and the surrounding areas. By contrast at the edge, I'm more specifically talking about a border, in this case a gray (again 40 - 60%) would work fine.

I also agree with previous comments.

Additional note: don't change letter-spacing unless you're absolutely-sure-without-a-doubt that it will improve attention and concentration.