Description

The HTML element <p> is used to define a paragraph, which is one of the most used block elements.

  • Browsers ignore empty paragraph elements, so do not use empty <p> elements to add blank lines. Instead, use the <br> element or CSS margins.
  • Each paragraph starts on a new line with some margins (based on browser-defined styles) above and below the paragraphs, which can be overridden using CSS margins.

The below table summarizes its usage.

Usage Details
Placement It is displayed as a Block element.
Contents It can contain Inline elements and text.
Tags Opening tag: required; Closing tag: optional
Versions HTML 2, 3.2, 4, 4.01, 5

Syntax

Here is the basic syntax of the <p> element.

<p>...</p>

Examples

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Example - HTML Element p</title>
</head>
<body>
    <p>This is a paragraph.<p>
    <p>This is a another paragraph.<p>
</body>
</html>

Attributes

The following table shows the list of supported and unsupported attributes for the <p> element.

Attribute Type Details
Element-Specific Attributes The tag <p> has some element-specific attributes listed in the below table.
Global Attributes Like all other HTML tags, the tag <p> supports the HTML Global Attributes.
Event Attributes The tag <p> also supports the HTML Event Attributes.

Here is a list of attributes that are specific to the <p> element.

Attribute Value Required Description
align left, right, center, justify No Obsolete
Specifies the horizontal alignment of the paragraph text.
This attribute is no more supported in HTML5, so use the CSS text-align property instead.

Browser Compatibility

The tag <p> is supported in all modern browsers.

  • Google Chrome 1+
  • Internet Explorer or Edge 2+
  • Firefox 1+
  • Apple Safari 1+
  • Opera 2.1+

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