<pre>venting my layout from working

[createErrorMsg]

Help!

I am trying to use the <pre> tag to put some formatted code into a web page. It does this, yes, but the tag is utterly destroying my layout. WIthout the <pre> tag, the code is a mess but the layout is fine. As soon as I put in the <pre> tags, my content area expands to fill the screen (width-wise), my sidebar disappears down the page, it's a disaster.

Any idea why <pre> might mess up my layout?
Any idea what I can do about it?

[pageoneresults]

With the

<pre></pre>

element, you need to force line breaks or it will run on one line across the screen. Would that be the issue?

[Wrapdida]

maybe setting up CSS declarations on your <pre> tag like width:****% would do the trick.

[createErrorMsg]

I just tried assigning a width to the pre element. Good idea but it didn't work. Even tried changing the display between inline and block (with a width value) but nothing changed.

I thought it WAS because <pre> retaines line breaks, but it's not the <pre> tag content that's stretching everything. It's actually a normal <p> element that is defining the end width.

What about options for wrapping? Any idea what's available in the specs for that?

[Wrapdida]

what am weary about is it inhereting previous tag properties. we can pick it off one by one if you post your css for whatever container it is in.

[Purple Martin]

The specs say that <pre> is an inline element, so width won't work unless you give it display:block;
[w3.org...]