# \< and \> characters in subject and posts

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/and-characters-in-subject-and-posts/282043
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 12, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/and-characters-in-subject-and-posts/282043 "2023-10-12T16:48:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Joe\_Nguyen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/joe_nguyen/32/336657_2.png) [@Joe\_Nguyen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Joe_Nguyen)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/and-characters-in-subject-and-posts/282043/1 "2023-10-12T16:48:07Z")

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Hi Everyone!

I’ve received reports from community members about a forum behavior where anything enclosed between ‘\<’ and ‘\>’ is interpreted as HTML code. This means that if you type ‘\< prefix \>::1’, only ‘::1’ is visible when reading the post, but the entire text is visible during the editing phase.

Is it possible to modify this behavior or provide an option for users to disable it in their profile settings? I couldn’t find any related setting in the user profiles.

Thanks!

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### Author: ![Lilly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/lilly/32/575047_2.png) [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2023, 5:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/and-characters-in-subject-and-posts/282043/2 "2023-10-12T17:16:19Z")

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Hi @Joe_Nguyen I don’t believe there is any way to disable it

> [@Disable HTML Formatting for Posts](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-html-formatting-for-posts/110565/1):
>
> Hi. Our forum is the one for budding programmers. Now, many of the users are inexperienced and have just begun to learn the art of coding. So, while posting their questions/suggestions on the forum, they miss providing back-ticks while including their code. And as you can guess, the result is not good. #include \<iostream\> becomes #include I suppose, the interpreter considers \<iostream\> as a HTML tag and hides it. I do not want this behaviour. So is there any way I can selectively enable HT…

But you can use the preformatted `</>` text button in the composer, as well as the code language after the first set of ticks.

 ![preformatted_code](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/c/7/4/c74cdf2bf536f5cbaaea99451caecc9e3f657e3d.png)

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### Author: ![Joe\_Nguyen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/joe_nguyen/32/336657_2.png) [@Joe\_Nguyen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Joe_Nguyen)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2023, 5:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/and-characters-in-subject-and-posts/282043/3 "2023-10-12T17:20:20Z")

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@Lilly Thank you!

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### Author: ![Lilly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/lilly/32/575047_2.png) [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2023, 5:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/and-characters-in-subject-and-posts/282043/4 "2023-10-12T17:22:29Z")

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No problem. I forgot to include the button screenshot in my first post and just added it. I hope this helps. 🙂

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### Author: ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/system/32/443519_2.png) [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2023, 5:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/and-characters-in-subject-and-posts/282043/5 "2023-11-11T17:22:46Z")

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