pre Element

Module

The pre element is a block-level element declared by the XHTML 1.1 Text Module (Block Phrasal)

Elements in the Text Module are:
span | br (Inline Structural Support Module)
em | strong | q | cite | abbr | acronym | code | var | kbd | samp | dfn (Inline Phrasal Support Module)
div | p (Block Structural Support Module)
h1 - h6 | blockquote | pre | address (Block Phrasal Support Module)

Description

The pre element is a handy container element for text when you want to preserve its whitespace and hence layout (e.g. for program code or poetry). This is in contrast to the default behaviour of other elements, which is to contract all stretches of whitespace to a single space. pre output is usually rendered in a monospace font.

<pre>Text formatted with whitespace
          as it appears
   in the file and usually
      formatted
      in a monospace
           font
	   
           to ensure the correct alignment.</pre>

Text formatted with whitespace
          as it appears
   in the file and usually
      formatted
      in a monospace
           font
	   
           to ensure the correct alignment.

The pre element is a block element and so its contents begin on a new line. The effect of the pre element may be achieved on another block level element by using the CSS declarations white-space:pre;font-family:monospace but bear in mind that not all users will have author styles enabled.

For detailed information on CSS whitespace processing see: *CSS 2.1 - Whitespace: the 'white-space' property.

#REQUIRED Attributes

There are no #REQUIRED attributes on the pre element.

Specific Attributes

There are no specific attributes declared on the pre element.

Common Attributes

From the Core Attribute Collection

class [ type NMTOKENS ]

One or more space separated classes

id [ type ID ]

A unique identifier for the element

style [ type CDATA ], from the Style Attribute Module (deprecated)

Element-specific styles

title [ type Text ]

Descriptive title for the element (in some user agents this may appear as a "tooltip" when the mouse hovers over the element)

xmlns [ type URI - #FIXED 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' ]

XML namespace

From the I18N Attribute Collection

dir [ type Enumeration (ltr | rtl) ], from the Bi-directional Text Module

Left-to-right or right-to-left directionality

xml:lang [ type LanguageCode ]

A language code for the element

From the Events Attribute Collection

All attributes in the Events Attribute Collection are supported:
onclick, ondblclick, onmousedown, onmouseup, onmouseover, onmousemove, onmouseout, onkeypress, onkeydown, onkeyup

Content Model

( #PCDATA | InlStruct.class | InlPhras.class | I18n.class | Anchor.class | tt | i | b | script | map )*

See Content Model & Nesting for information about Content Model syntax and Nesting Groups.

Valid children of pre

• #PCDATA
• From the Text Module: abbr, acronym, br, cite, code, dfn, em, kbd, q, samp, span, strong, var
• From the Hypertext Module: a
• From the Presentation Module: b, i, tt
• From the Client-side Image Map Module: map
• From the Scripting Module: script
• From the Bi-directional Text Module: bdo

Note: A pre element must never contain any of the following elements, at any nesting depth: img, object, big, small, sub, sup. See Descendant Exclusions.

Valid parents of pre

• From the Structure Module: body
• From the Text Module: blockquote, div
• From the List Module: dd, li
• From the Tables Module: td, th
• From the Forms Module: button, fieldset, form
• From the Client-side Image Map Module: map
• From the Scripting Module: noscript
• From the Edit Module: del, ins
• From the Object Module: object