What is a preformatted text for?

Question

I cannot understand what those brackets above for. When I click it, "enter preformatted text" comes up. What is it for?

Answer 1

When you use "preformatted text", all the letters are the same width. That's really good for programming sites like Stack Overflow where you need to discuss computer code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    printf("Hello, world!\n");
    return 0;
}

But we don't use it much here on English Language Learners, because we don't need to discuss programming very much.

Instead, we usually use the blockquote formatting:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

— The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien

This is better for discussing English. The letters are different widths and are easier to read.

Please use blockquote formatting in your questions, and don't use preformatted text unless you have a special reason to do so. What do I mean by a "special reason"? If you really want to line text up vertically, like in joiedevivre's answer, you can use preformatted text to do so:

  1 Shakta people (ethnic group)
+ 1 Shaiva people (ethnic group)
________________________________
= 2 Hindu peoples (two ethnic groups that are both Hindu)


  n Hindu people who believe in god
+ n Hindu people who don't believe in god
_________________________________________
= n Hindu people (many Hindu people with different beliefs)

But this should be treated as the exception rather than the rule.

For a little bit of white space every now and then, you can use   to insert one blank space. Also, two blank spaces at the end of a line will force a line break. Those two tricks can be used to write something like this, for example:

Your breath has time to straighten,
    Your brain to bubble cool, –
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
    That scalps your naked soul.

— The Master, Emily Dickinson