Remember when I said that the browser doesn't understand formatting, it just displays text in a steady stream? Kind of like this...

    <BODY>
                    ///\\___
                    (@ @)
         +----oOO----(_)-----------+
         |      BARRY GOLDWATER    |
         |           for           |
         |        President        |
         +-----------------oOO-----+
                   |__|__|
                    || ||
                   ooO Ooo
    </BODY>

///\\___ (@ @) +----oOO----(_)-----------+ | BARRY GOLDWATER | | for | | President | +-----------------oOO-----+ |__|__| || || ooO Ooo

Well, with the `<PRE>` (preformat) tag, we can put a stop to that and have things displayed the way we type them.

    <BODY>
    <PRE>
                    ///\\___
                    (@ @)
         +----oOO----(_)-----------+
         |      BARRY GOLDWATER    |
         |           for           |
         |        President        |
         +-----------------oOO-----+
                   |__|__|
                    || ||
                   ooO Ooo
    </PRE>
    </BODY>

                    ///\\___
                    (@ @)
         +----oOO----(_)-----------+
         |      BARRY GOLDWATER    |
         |           for           |
         |        President        |
         +-----------------oOO-----+
                   |__|__|
                    || ||
                   ooO Ooo

Notice that a monospaced font is used.

The last tag we're going to discuss is a comment.

    <BODY>
    <!--This is a comment-->
    This is not
    <P>A comment can be placed anywhere in the document and the browser
    will ignore everything inside the brackets. You can insert hidden
    messages, <!--Hi Mom!--> notes to yourself, <!--Pick up milk--> or
    write a helpful message to someone looking at the source of your
    page.<!--Copy anything off me and you're dead meat!-->
    </BODY>

This is not A comment can be placed anywhere in the document and the browser will ignore everything inside the brackets. You can insert hidden messages, notes to yourself, or write a helpful message to someone looking at the source of your page.

Just to be absolutely clear, the comment must start with `<!--` and end with `-->`
You can (usually) even put other html tags in a comment and they will be ignored. The browser will just keep ignoring everything until it sees a `-->`

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