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Keep Formatting with the Pre Element

Sometimes you don’t want to trust the browser to render spacing, tabs, and returns on its own. Poetry, formulas, or programming code, for example, may have their meaning changed or be harder to read if the browser is allowed to do its own thing.

But there’s an easy workaround you can use: the <PRE> element. The text between <PRE> and </PRE> is preserved in its original state and won’t reflow the text when the browser window is resized. The code for this element looks like this:

<PRE>

This text breaks

like a poem would

yet is not, in fact,

a poem, as far

as I can tell.

</PRE>


However, you can’t retain everything from the original text. Browsers render preformatted text in a monospaced font, resembling Courier, and retain only simple formatting, such as bold and italics.


Get Specialized

These special treatments of text are essential parts of any Web author’s knowledgebase. Keep them on hand when you need to create quotes, let others know when you have inserted text, or maintain the original formatting for a block of text.