display variables in html email without textarea

was wondering if someone out there could tell me how to display a variable in php html email....?

I have a form with inputs...that is then processed and the inputs put in variables then put into an html email template and emailed across...if you just use ehco/print the variable i can't control the width or display line breaks....so i have textareas with the intial values bei开发者_运维百科ng the variable...this displaying the line breaks and controlling the width for appearance...the text areas are set not to show borders and scroll bars but have a pre-determined hieght (to avoid showing the scroll bars as this will be printed off when recieved)...taking up much hieght on the form when printing it.

so i was wondering if there is a better way to display the variables in cleaner more attractive way ? The part that i am getting really stumped with is displaying the line breaks and its an html form so the options are limited.

I am sure somone has come across this before...but i am pulling my hair out here ! any help would be greatly appreaciated !

Typically when displaying pre-formatted text, you want to wrap said text in <pre></pre> tags:

 <pre><?php echo htmlentities($myvar); ?></pre>

Edit:

As mentioned by sdolgy, you should escape any HTML within your text. I have updated the above code to reflect that point.

Justin gave the right answer, however, there is a little more that could be done:

 <pre><?php echo htmlentities($myvar);?></pre>

This ensures that the pre-formatted text, which could contain special characters, like </pre> doesn't prematurely close the <pre></pre> tag.