<p>The <strong class=html>BR</strong> element forces a <em>break</em> in the current line of text. <strong class=html>BR</strong> can be useful in formatting addresses within the <strong class=html><a href="../block/address.html">ADDRESS</a></strong> element, but it is often misused to break lines of text in a paragraph or table cell when it looks "nice" to the author. This usually results in an awkward presentation when viewed with a font size other than that used by the author.</p>
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<p>The <strong class=html>CLEAR</strong> attribute of <strong class=html>BR</strong> is used to move below floating objects (typically <a href="img.html">images</a> or <a href="../tables/table.html">tables</a>). In the following example, the second paragraph should be rendered below the floating image:</p>
<p class=example><code class=html><P><IMG SRC="toronto.jpg" ALIGN=left ALT="" TITLE="Toronto's CN Tower">Toronto is the largest city in Canada and the fourth largest in North America.</P><br><BR CLEAR=left><br><P>The city is highly multicultural, with over 80 ethnic communities from Africa, Asia, and Europe...</code></p>
<p><a href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/">Style sheets</a> provide more flexibility in controlling text flow around objects and eliminate the need to use <strong class=html>BR</strong> for this purpose since CSS1's <strong class=css><a href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/box/clear.html">clear</a></strong> property can be applied to any element (such as the second paragraph in the preceding example).</p>
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<h2>More Information</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/text.html#edef-BR">BR in <abbr class=initialism title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr> HTMLá4.0 Recommendation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32#br">BR in <abbr class=initialism title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr> HTMLá3.2 Recommendation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_5.html#SEC5.8">BR in HTMLá2.0 Standard</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/wilbur/special/br.html">BR in <abbr class=initialism title="Web Design Group">WDG</abbr> HTMLá3.2 Reference</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.hut.fi/u/jkorpela/HTML3.2/5.12.html">BR in <cite>Learning HTMLá3.2 by Examples</cite></a></li>
</ul>
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<address>Maintained by <a href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/%7Eliam/">Liam Quinn</a> <<a href="mailto:liam@htmlhelp.com">liam@htmlhelp.com</a>></address>