Mysql and php formatting

[Synestic]

Hi
What would be the best practice to format my text in MySQL without messing around in php?
For example, I have a description:

TECHNICAL FEATURES: 
Anti static, dust repellent,...

COLOURS AVAILABLE:
- WHITE
- BLACK

I'm copying everything from my old website (html-only) into my database, and this is what it outputs in php:

TECHNICAL FEATURES: Anti static, dust repellent,... COLOURS AVAILABLE: -WHITE -BLACK

Is there any way to keep the formatting ?
When I just copy it in there, there are no line breaks. Is there a solution to this?

[blocblue]

If you copied and pasted the text, it should have preserved the line breaks. These however do not show in HTML and need to be converted to break <br /> tags.

There's a handy function in PHP for doing this called nl2br();. Simply pass your string through that before displaying.

E.g.

$string = 'TECHNICAL FEATURES: Anti static, dust repellent,... COLOURS AVAILABLE: -WHITE -BLACK';
echo nl2br($string);