FIGURE A TABLE CREATED USING SHOWN IN A BROWSER.

OUTPUT  FIGURE A TABLE CREATED USING <PRE>, SHOWN IN A BROWSER.

 When you’re creating text for the <pre> tag, you can use link tags and character styles, but not element tags such as headings or paragraphs. You should back your lines with hard returns and try to keep your lines to 60 characters or fewer. S9ome browsers might have limited horizontal space in which to display text. Because browsers usually won’t reformate preformatted text to fit that space, you should make sure that you keep your text within the boundaries to prevent your readers from having to scroll from side to side.

Be careful with tabs in preformatted text. The actual number of characters for each tab stop varies from browser to browser. One browser might have tab stops at every fourth character, whereas another may have them at every eighth character. You should convert any tabs in your preformatted text to spaces so that your formatting isn’t messed up it it’s viewed with different tab settings than in the program you used to enter the text.

The <pre> tag is also excellent for converting files that were originally in some sort of text-only form, such as mail messages or use net news postings, into HTML quickly and easily. Just surround the entire content of the article within <pre> tag and you have instant HTML, as in the following example:

<pre>

To:lemay@1ne.com

From:jokes@.com

Subject: tables of the move from hell, pt.1

I spent the day on the phone today with the entire household services division of northern California, Turing off services, turning on services, transferring services and other such fun things you have to do when you move.