Physical Spacing and Layout

Physical spacing and layout tags define the basic structure of a document. Headings, paragraphs, tables and lists all provide some basic physical and logical layout to a page. Each spacing and layout tag is shown with a brief description, and any unusual behavior is described.

• <p> indicates the start of a new paragraph. A blank line is inserted between previous text and text following the <p> tag.
• <br> indicates to insert a breakpoint. A newline is inserted between previous text and text following the <br> tag.
• <pre> indicates no formatting rules apply to the text that follows. This implies that no wrapping will be applied to this text, which can result in adding a horizontal scrollbar to view the text.
• <hr> indicates that a newline and a horizontal rule line should be inserted between the previous text and text following the <hr> tag.
• <blockquote> indicates that the following text is a quote, and should be offset in some way. The embedded text is shown with newlines before and after the text, with spacing to the left and right. Within that “block” of text, normal wrapping rules apply.
• <q> indicates that the following text is a short quote, and should be shown in double-quotes (according to documentation). This text appears as normal text, with no physical identifying indications.
• <h1> - <h6> indicate heading sections. Each level is one point smaller than the previous level, with <h1> being the largest.

The section titled Maintaining Context contains design guidelines for maintaining user context.