Is it sometimes bad to use <BR />?

html tags styles
pencilCake picture pencilCake · Nov 13, 2009 · Viewed 79.2k times · Source

Is it sometimes bad to use <BR/> tags?

I ask because some of the first advice my development team gave me was this: Don't use <BR/> ; instead, use styles. But why? Are there negative outcomes when using <BR/> tags?

Answer

Gareth picture Gareth · Nov 13, 2009

The main reason for not using <br> is that it's not semantic. If you want two items in different visual blocks, you probably want them in different logical blocks.

In most cases this means just using different elements, for example <p>Stuff</p><p>Other stuff</p>, and then using CSS to space the blocks out properly.

There are cases where <br> is semantically valid, i.e. cases where the line break is part of the data you're sending. This is really only limited to 2 use cases - poetry and mailing addresses.

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