Yes, closing the p tag in HTML4 is only optional. I should have said XHTML...
which has been a recommeded standard for almost 9 years. The issue is the
choice to use p instead of br.

In Outlooks defense...
Compare the industry standard web design program Adobe Dreamweaver in design
view. When pressing enter in design view a paragraph tag p.../p is
created (blank link between paragraphs). When pressing shift-enter a break
tag br / is created ('carriage' return).

So Outlook is essentially acting the same way.

Although, I found a contradiction in how Microsoft handles this. When you
save a Word document as a web page it adds the p tags but gives them a
margin of 0. Which removes the blank line.

So, is Microsoft aware that there shouldn't be a blank line after each enter
keystroke???

Can Outlook fix this inconsistency by using br instead?



"Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]" wrote:

"AaronD" wrote in message
...

The br tag is self closing. You only need one: br /
But the p tag is NOT. The p tag always has a beginning tag p and text
between then close it with /p.
So when Outlook just uses the p tag only, they are not using the HTML
language properly.

I looked at the HTML standards on line. /p is not required if the
paragraph is enclosed in another block element like div.../div or when
followed by another element. By definition, an element closes all
preceeding unclosed start tags up to the matching start tag. This is from
the HTML V4.0 specification.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]