# PHP + MySQL text output problem

**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/php-mysql-text-output-problem/188551
**Category:** programming
**Created:** [May 8, 2006, 11:08pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/php-mysql-text-output-problem/188551 "2006-05-08T23:08:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![zero\_one1](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/zero_one1/32/948_2.png) [@zero\_one1](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/zero_one1)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2006, 11:08pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/php-mysql-text-output-problem/188551/1 "2006-05-08T23:08:01Z")

</div>

I’m developing this website to learn PHP and MySQL.  
When outputting text from the database the paragraph somehow are not being show, unless I output in a _textarea_

code with text area showing proper paragraphs

```auto
<p class="text">Article:<br> 
<textarea name="thearticle" cols="170" rows="20">
   <?php echo $row['thearticle']; ?>
</textarea></p>

```

code with

but outputs without paragraphs

```auto
<p>Article: </p>
<p><?php echo $row['thearticle'];?></p>

```

to see the output of but the above implimentations go to: [http://matthewzammit.com/cms/viewArticle.php?id=15](http://matthewzammit.com/cms/viewArticle.php?id=15) where both are displayed on the same page under each other

how am I going to get rid of the _textarea_ and output into a normal \<p\> tag? this textarea is annoying as it has a fixed size and if exceeded will create ugly scrollbars.

hope you can help!! thanks in advance.

Matt