The actual form of the pre-format command is

leftbracket-pee-are-ee-rightbracket.

I couldn't make it print as text at first because the board interprets it as a formatting command, which doesn't print, and so I typed instead

leftbracket-space-pee-are-ee-space-rightbracket, which is [ pre ]

and which shows up fine but doesn't do anything if you type it in faithfully as it appears, being no longer in the right format because of the spaces. Thus the green instruction to omit the spaces.

The "end-pre-formatted-text" instruction is, analogously,

leftbracket-slash-pee-are-ee-rightbracket.

Now if only I could figure out how to underline...


PS. Most of the fonts we use are no longer "fixed-spacing", which means so-and-so many characters per inch (remember those typewriters with Elite (12 cpi) or Pica (10 cpi) type?) Nowadays we see more "proportional-spacing" -- an i is narrower than a W, and a space narrower still. This can distort your painstakingly-constructed pre-formatted texts, depending on what font the viewer is using.