HTML Paragraphs

The HTML <p> element defines a paragraph. A paragraph always starts on a new line, and browsers automatically add some white space (a margin) before and after a paragraph.

You cannot be sure how HTML will be displayed. Large or small screens, and resized windows will create different results.

With HTML, you cannot change the display by adding extra spaces or extra lines in your HTML code. The browser will automatically remove any extra spaces and lines when the page is displayed:

The HTML <br> element defines a line break. Use <br> if you want a line break (a new line) without starting a new paragraph:

The <br> tag is an empty tag, which means that it has no end tag.

This poem will display on only one line because the browser ignores the spaces and line breaks:

The HTML <pre> element defines preformatted text. The text inside a <pre> element is displayed in a fixed-width font (usually Courier), and it preserves both spaces and line breaks:

Compare the difference between <p> and <pre> by pasting the same poem into both tags in your editor. Notice how the browser 'cleans up' the text in the <p> tag but leaves the <pre> tag exactly as you wrote it!

A: The browser collapses multiple spaces into one. To force multiple spaces, you can use the entity   (non-breaking space) or use the <pre> tag which preserves formatting.

A: The <p> tag is a block-level element used to define a new paragraph with vertical margins. The <br> tag is an inline element used only to force a simple line break without adding extra vertical space.

A: Use the <pre> tag when the formatting (spaces/indentation) as written in the code is important, such as for displaying code snippets, poems, or ASCII art.