Web Standards Programmer's Reference: HTML, CSS, JavaScript®, Perl, Python®, and PHP

3.1. Paragraphs — The Basic Block Element

Like most documents, Web documents are broken up into discrete blocks. The main textual blocks are delimited by paragraph tags (<p>). Paragraph tags surround each paragraph in the document.

Using Paragraph Tags For example, consider the following paragraphs from Homer's Iliad: "Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. Those who were about Ajax and King Idomeneus, the followers moreover of Teucer, Meriones, and Meges peer of Mars called all their best men about them and sustained the fight against Hector and the Trojans, but the main body fell back upon the ships of the Achaeans. "The Trojans pressed forward in a dense body, with Hector striding on at their head. Before him went Phoebus Apollo shrouded in cloud about his shoulders. He bore aloft the terrible aegis with its shaggy fringe, which Vulcan the smith had given Jove to strike terror into the hearts of men. With this in his hand he led on the Trojans." Note how the lines within the paragraph are spaced using single line spacing, with double-spacing between the paragraphs. Source To display the paragraphs similarly in a Web document, you would simply place each paragraph within paragraph tags: <p>Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. Those who were about Ajax and King Idomeneus, the followers moreover of Teucer, Meriones, and Meges peer of Mars called all their best men about them and sustained the fight against Hector and the Trojans, but the main body ...