Using <p> to skip lines

[netzeye]

Hi,I am having trouble with skipping a line using <p>. Previously, I have always used just a single <p> if i wanted to skip lines, but when i validate, it says it's not valid.

Isn't:

<p>Hi</p>
<p>This is netzeye.</p>

suppose to have result like this?

Hi

This is netzeye.

[ryanbutler]

Yes. There's probably something else going on in your page. Can you provide a web page address?

[joshua.toenyes]

netzeye-

A single <p> tag as a line break is not valid HTML because it is missing the closing tag.

Consider using CSS to change your <p> tag padding, (which would add space after your paragraph) or simply using a <br/> tag to add a new line.

Using CSS would be the best, most elegant solution.

-Josh

[netzeye]

Yep, http://www.netzeye.com/Products/view...ct.php?id=1003


Joshua, im not sure how to create a line break via CSS, can you please teach me?

[joshua.toenyes]

Just add in your CSS something similar to:

p {padding-bottom:10px}

That will add a 10px space after each paragraph. It works for all elements displayed as a block (i.e. tables, as I see you utilize frequently).

-Josh

[netzeye]

thanks, it works!

[joshua.toenyes]

Happy to help.

-Josh

[kiwibrit]

netzeye-

A single <p> tag as a line break is not valid HTML because it is missing the closing tag.......

Using <p> as a line break is discouraged. However, the closing </p> is optional in HTML 4.01. It is not optional in XHTML, of course.

9.3.1 Paragraphs: the P element

<!ELEMENT P - O (%inline* -- paragraph -->
<!ATTLIST P
%attrs; -- %coreattrs, %i18n, %events --
>

Start tag: required, End tag: optional

Attributes defined elsewhere

* id, class (document-wide identifiers)
* lang (language information), dir (text direction)
* title (element title)
* style (inline style information )
* align (alignment)
* onclick, ondblclick, onmousedown, onmouseup, onmouseover, onmousemove, onmouseout, onkeypress, onkeydown, onkeyup (intrinsic events )

The P element represents a paragraph. It cannot contain block-level elements (including P itself).

We discourage authors from using empty P elements. User agents should ignore empty P elements.

[felgall]

Using <p> as a line break is discouraged. However, the closing </p> is optional in HTML 4.01. It is not optional in XHTML, of course.

It is optional for the web browsers because they need to work ouit how to display the paragraph when you leave it out.

Actually leaving it out of a web page just makes your page harder to maintain and so to save your self errors in the future when you forget where each paragraph ends you should insert a short comment to remind you. </p> is an acceptable format for the comment to take as that is a lot shorter than the alternative <!-- paragraph ends here -->

[kiwibrit]

I agree - I was a bit in pedant mode. That said, the absence of a closing tag for <p> (in HTML) should not cause a false rendering of a page in a browser.

Another good reason for closing tags is that it makes switching to xhtml easier should that ever be appropriate.

[Declan1991]

I agree - I was a bit in pedant mode. That said, the absence of a closing tag for <p> (in HTML) should not cause a false rendering of a page in a browser.

But empty <p>s should be ignored and not rendered. The problem would be that the validator probably thinks that the p tag contains the following p tag which would be invalid.

[joshua.toenyes]

Using <p> as a line break is discouraged. However, the closing </p> is optional in HTML 4.01. It is not optional in XHTML, of course.

Thanks for pointing that out, your are absolutely right... I code everything in XHTML, and that is what I was referring to.

Still however, using <p> tag for a line break in HTML, even if it is valid, is bad practice at a minimum.

His page most likely didn't validate because he is using XHTML 1.0 Transitional...

-Josh