database and php help

[adamwhiles]

I have a database table that has poems in it. Question number one is how do i keep the returns like where a new line starts. In the database it keeps it, but when i echo the contents of the table in php it loses the formatting.

second question is: the poems are long and I just want to display a portion like 200 characters of the poem on one page and have a link to another page where you can view the rest of the poem. how would i do that?

Thanks,
Adam
http://www.adamwhiles.com

[nemonoman]

[man]nl2br[/man]

SELECT substring(poemtext, 1, 200), concat ('<a href=', linktofullpoem, '>Click here to see full poem...note that you need to store the link in the database if you want this to work</a>') FROM poem WHERE id=1