The <p> Tag

Paragraphs are use used as containers for raw text and inline elements. They cannot contain other paragraphs - or indeed, any other block element. The code for a paragraph element bears the form

Like any other element, paragraphs are amenable to CSS styling. The more useful attributes of <p> elements are listed below

• The class attribute is discussed here. One can locally alter some aspects of the assigned style by defining an inline style using the code style="color:...". Needless to say, only those style attributes that require altering/adding need to be specified.
• The id attribute is discussed here.
• The events available across all three browsers - Firefox, Opera and IE - are discussed here.
• The style attribute is used to assign inline CSS styling information to the element. The specification takes the form style="color:...". Inline styling should be used sparingly to temporarily override CSS attributes inherited from a class specification.

It is common practice to place raw text directly inside the body element. Browsers tend to be very fault tolerant and accept this. Nevertheless, this is wrong - raw text should always be wrapped in a <p>..</p> pair.

Finally, it should be noted that browsers ignore sequences of empty paragraph tags - as they do sequences of spaces and all carriage return characters.