Readers Respond: Do you use the closing </p> tag and other optional end tags? Why or Why Not?

There are a number of HTML tags that do not require closing tags to be valid HTML. Find out what they are and why you might leave off the tags or keep writing them.

Find out why other web designers use or don't use these closing tags and share your thoughts on the matter.
Share Your Thoughts
Parsers love end tags!

I'm currently writing a naive HTML parser in lieu of a DOM module available for the environment - that is to say that it's going to fail on completely invalid HTML such as [a]text[/a]. But at least it will fail gracefully and simply close the [a] element and ignore the [/b] (unless there's another upstream). But if there's no closing tag at all: [a][b]test[something else] Now I have to add code that says "if element a is followed by element b, assume element a is closed". Repeat this for at least 18 elements with anywhere between 1 and 4 special cases, and you can imagine that full-fledged browsers must be full of all sorts of if-then-else lines that would not have been necessary if using (valid) XHTML instead.
—Guest Parser

Closing tags

I never use the closing tag, because it seemed such a waste of time. In fact, in order to look more like a book or newspaper, WITH an indent, but WITHOUT the wasted line, I invented and leave another space before the first word or character.
—Guest John Massam

I always close my tags

A great question, one of the things I like dreamweaver CS5 is that it automatcly creates the ending tags so I don't forget. I like to keep Y code clean and easy for someone else to make changes.
—Guest Tim Loomis

Always Use Them!

I write in XHTML, so I have to include end tags for a valid document. However, I also find that it makes for an easier to read and edit document, so I prefer them anyways.
—bearcatnat

Leaving out HTML end tags

Jennifer, I've found that if I leave end tags out, I often get errors in my page organization. What happens is some other tag won't work properly because I've left an end tag off. Many times I'll pick up a new client and will have to "edit" their existing pages. The client is usually appalled with the look and feel of their current pages so I'll go through the code and clean it up by either closing tags or adding newer tags, tags that are not deprecated. Once this is done, their pages load more cleanly and the client is once again happy with their websites. Also, by doing this extra work, it helps me when I actually have to go in and change parts to any page. As to making a page load faster by leaving end tags off, I think that is crap. In the long run, when incorporating javascripts or CSS your pages will eventually fail to load because someplace there is a "tag battle" occurring. For me, it's just not worth it to leave it incomplete.
—hafnerdesigns

Closing tags

I have worked in code only mode for many years, so for me the thought of leaving out the closing tags is like leaving your front door open at home. It's just good to finish things properly in my opinion.
—ValSeven

Pete

For consistency I always use closing tags and use TIDY to check my coding validity on new and updated pages. I have not received any complaints of slow down load speed from the several auditors of my site.
—wpetewasmund

End Tags in HTML

Having used HTML for sometime I guess it's habit using the end tags. Even now with images etc... I still use it. I do remember at times that it is not needed but I always opt to close them off!!

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