Paragraphs & White-space:
HTML eats excess white-space. If you type two or more spaces in a row between words HTML will reduce all of the spaces and tabs to a single space or tab. Carriage Returns (the Enter key) won't do you any good either. Without special care it is easy to end up with a wall of unreadable text. It's quite cruel. If you want white-space beyond a single space you need to insert it explicitly by typing <br> or <p> for a CRLF and a paragraph, respectively.
Break <br> works like you expect Enter (or Carriage Return) to work. It gets you a single LFCR (Line Feed Carriage Return, just like an ancient typewriter). Two styles of break are in use, the preferred version (used in HTML 5) <br /> which contains its own closing tag. Paragraph <p> makes what follows into a paragraph set off by linefeeds. Neither <p> or <br> requires closing tag. The browser software will assume a paragraph is closed when it encounters the next <p>. Closing a paragraph actually makes good sense, closing a break seems like a waste of perfectly good characters.modulo the HTML gods referenced above.
Blockquotes are another useful trick. This entire paragraph has been enclosed in blockquotes. Anything you put between <blockquote> the example text <blockquote> gets indented and set off by linefeeds before and after. This example, rendered, will look likethe example textthe text above. Blockquotes can be nested (placed one inside another) and are a great way to distinguish the source of a quote from your own text.
Preformatted, or the <pre> tag provides a way to grab a bunch of text that is already formatted with tabs and spaces and not have HTML eat all that lovely white-space. As usual a closing tag is required with this </pre>. You can use this trick on a webpage but you need to realize that if the text you are copying wraps because it runs into the edge of the page and not because there is a CRLF present it will behave the same way in the preformatted chunk.
Horizontal Rule <hr> generates a horizontal line the width of the page. People often use this to separate their comments from those being commented upon. This also does not need a closing tag. A width can be set with this element, <hr width="150"> looks like:
Note that it is automagically centered. You can align="right" or "left" to position it explicitly. The usual caveat about using percentages instead of pixels applies so the preferred form looks like:
<hr width=10% align=left>Which yields:
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Freedom ≠ Free Stuff☭ |  |
| I, for one, welcome our new Cybernetic Overlords /. | ||
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