Blocks of text build the foundation of your web page. You use blocks of text to create such things as headings, paragraphs, and lists. You can break those blocks into smaller pieces to better guide readers through your content.

Block quotes

A block quote is a quotation, or an excerpt from a copyrighted source, that you set apart on a page. Use the

element to enclose quotations:

  
    
    
  
  
    
An Inspiring Quote
    
When I need a little inspiration to remind me of why I spend my days
       in the classroom, I just remember what Lee Iococca said:
    

      In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers
      and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.
    
  

Most web browsers display block quote content with a slight left indent, as shown in in this figure.

Preformatted text

Ordinarily, HTML ignores white space inside documents. That’s why a browser won’t display any of a block element’s

• Hard returns.

• Line breaks.

• Large white spaces.

The following markup includes various hard returns, line breaks, and lots of spaces. The figure shows that the web browser ignores all of this.

This is a paragraph
   with a lot of white space
        thrown in for fun (and as a test of course).

The preformatted text element (

) instructs browsers to keep all white space intact while it displays your content. (As shown in the code sample.) Use the 
 element in place of the 
 element to make the browser apply all your white space, as shown in the figure.


  
    
    
  
  
    
This is a paragraph
                           with a lot of white space
                                  thrown in for fun (and as a test of course).
    
  

You may want the browser to display white spaces in an HTML page where proper spacing is important, such as for

 
Code samples
 
 
Columnar data, numbers, or other format-sensitive text
 
 
Text tables
 

You could nest 
 elements inside 
 elements to carefully control how lines of quoted text appear on the page. Or better yet, forget about these tags and use CSS to position text blocks inside 
 elements.

Horizontal rules
Using a horizontal rule element (hr) lets you include solid straight lines called rules on your page.
The browser creates the rule based on the hr element, so users don’t wait for a graphic to download. A horizontal rule is a good option to

 
Break a page into logical sections.
 
 
Separate headers and footers from the rest of the page.
 

Formatting
When you include an 
 element on your page, as in the following HTML, the browser replaces it with a line, as shown in the figure.



  
    
    
  
  
    
This is a paragraph followed by a horizontal rule.
    

    
This is a paragraph preceded by a horizontal rule.
  

A horizontal rule always sits on a line by itself; you can’t add the 
 element in the middle of a paragraph (or other block element) and expect the rule to appear in the middle of the block.

The following bit of HTML creates a horizontal rule that takes up 45 percent of the page width, is 4 pixels (px) high, is aligned to the center, and has shading turned off:
    
This is a paragraph followed by a horizontal rule.
    

    
This is a paragraph preceded by a horizontal rule.
The figure shows how adding attributes in the preceding example alters how a rule appears. (Note: These attributes are deprecated, and best replaced with CSS equivalents. Deprecated attributes are covered online, and the preceding HTML is not valid.)