Posted by Ben C on 06/10/07 20:45

On 2007-06-10, David <none@none.com> wrote:
> i'm fairly new to html so forgive me if this is a silly question
>
> i can't work out the difference between <br> and <br />
> both seem to work ok for me
> in what cirumstances should each be used?

They mean the same. <br/> is XHTML, <br> is HTML. Most browsers will
tolerate <br/> even in HTML, but that doesn't make it right, so use
<br> if you're using HTML.

Opinion of the gurus on alt.html etc. is that HTML is preferred over
XHTML.

> also to make paragraphs i've been using <br> to make a gap between text
> buut now i've found <p> </p>
> is it more proper to use <p> than <br> or doesn't it matter?

Use <p> for paragraphs, <br> to break lines. What's the difference
between starting a new paragraph and putting in a line break? You
decide. If you use <p> there's more flexibility when it comes to styling
the paragraphs with CSS.

In XHTML you have to close paragraphs with </p>. In HTML you don't.

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