wendy, 'pre' is HTML-speak for preformat; it allows you to break out of the rigid formatting imposed by browser standards and (basically) arrange things on the screen the way you want them, 
                   like
                        this.

unfortunately, this has the side-effect of also removing your standard font settings.

-peter

p.s. - with the limited markup features that we have within this application, there doesn't seem to be any way around this; whereas with full-blown HTML you can make the font consistent.