Other Elements

3.12.1 - P (Paragraphs)
3.12.2 - PRE (Preformatted Text)
3.12.3 - BR (Line Break)
3.12.4 - HR (Horizontal Rule)
3.12.5 - META

P (Paragraphs)

Level: 0

The paragraph (P) element represents a paragraph. The exact rendering (indentation, leading, etc) of this element is not defined and may be a function of other tags, style sheets, etc.

NOTE: Do not use empty paragraphs to add white space around heading, list, address or blockquote elements. White space is added by the rendering software.

Typically, paragraphs are surrounded by a small vertical space (of one line or half a line). This is typically not the case within ADDRESS or is never the case within PRE elements. With some implementations, normal paragraphs may have a small extra left indent on the first line.

Example:

<H1>This Heading Precedes the Paragraph</H1>
<P>This is the text of the first paragraph.
<P>This is the text of the second paragraph. Although you
do not need to start paragraphs on new lines, maintaining
this convention facilitates document maintenance.
<P>This is the text of a third paragraph.

PRE (Preformatted Text)

Level: 0

The preformatted text element PRE presents sections in fixed-width font, and so is suitable for text that has been formatted for a teletype.

The PRE element may be used with the optional WIDTH attribute, which is a Level 1 feature. The width attribute specifies the maximum number of characters for a line and allows the presentation system to select a suitable font and indentation. If the WIDTH attribute is not present, a width of 80 is assumed. Where WIDTH is supported, it is recommended that at least widths of 40, 80 and 132 characters be presented optimally, with other widths being rounded up.

Within preformatted text:

NOTE: References to the "beginning of a new line" do not imply that the renderer is forbidden from using a (constant) left indent for rendering preformatted text. The left indent may of course be constrained by the width required.

An example of using the PRE element is:

<PRE WIDTH="80">
This is an example line.
 </PRE>
NOTE: Within a preformatted element, the constraint that the rendering must be on a fixed horizontal character pitch may limit or prevent the ability of the renderer to render highlighting elements specially.

3.12.3 BR (Line Break)

Level: 0

The line break tag (<BR>) specifies that a new line must be started at the given point. A new line indents the same as that of line-wrapped text.

An example of using the line break element is:

<P>Pease porridge hot<BR>
Pease porridge cold<BR>
Pease porridge in the pot<BR>
Nine days old.

3.12.4 HR (Horizontal Rule)

Level: 0

A horizontal rule tag (<HR>) is a divider between sections of text such as a full width horizontal rule or equivalent graphic. The horizontal rule is typically used for separating heading information (when more than just a heading) from content, etc. 

<H1>Name of Applicant</H1>
<HR>
<H2>Professionnnal Experience
<P>Text describing professional experience.

3.12.5 META

Level: 1

The META element is used within the head element to embed document meta-information not defined by other HTML elements. Such information can be extracted by servers/clients for use in identifying, indexing, and cataloging specialized document meta-information.

Although it is generally preferable to use named elements which have well-defined semantics for each type of meta-information (e.g. title), this element is provided for situations where strict SGML parsing is necessary and the local DTD is not extensible.

In addition, HTTP servers can read the content of the document HEAD to generate response headers corresponding to any elements defining a value for the attribute HTTP-EQUIV. This provides document authors a mechanism (not necessarily the preferred one) for identifying information which should be included in the response headers for an HTTP request.

The attributes of the META element are:

HTTP-EQUIV
This attribute binds the element to an HTTP response header. It means that if you know the semantics of the HTTP response header named by this attribute, then you can process the contents based on a well-defined syntactic mapping, whether or not your DTD tells you anything about it. HTTP header names are not case sensitive. If not present, the attribute NAME should be used to identify this meta-information and it should not be used within an HTTP response header.

NAME
Meta-information name. If not present, the name can be assumed equal to the value of HTTP-EQUIV. An HTTP-EQUIV or NAME attribute is required.

CONTENT
The meta-information content to be associated with the given name and/or HTTP response header. This attribute is required.

Examples

If the document contains: 

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="Tue, 04 Dec 1993 21:29:02 GMT">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Keywords" CONTENT="Fred, Barney">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Reply-to" content="fielding@ics.uci.edu (Roy Fielding)">

Expires: Tue, 04 Dec 1993 21:29:02 GMT
Keywords: Fred, Barney
Reply-to: fielding@ics.uci.edu (Roy Fielding)
When the HTTP-EQUIV attribute is not present, the server should not generate an HTTP response header for this meta-information; e.g., 

<META NAME="IndexType" content="Service">
Do not use the META element to define information that should be associated with an existing HTML element. Example of an inappropriate use of the META element:

<meta name="Title" content="The Etymology of Dunsel">
Do not name an HTTP-EQUIV equal to a response header that should normally only be generated by the HTTP server. Example names that are inappropriate include "Server", "Date", and "Last-modified" -- the exact list of inappropriate names is dependent on the particular server implementation. It is recommended that servers ignore any META elements which specify HTTP-equivalents which are equal (case-insensitively) to their own reserved response headers.

HTML 2.0 Specification (draft) - 13 OCT 94
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