When a person needs things to lay in exactly a certain point on the page, they can use the preformatted environment. Markup commands will work in typewriter text environment while they may not work in the preformatted environment. All characters will be displayed in a fixed width font.
Different browsers interpret tabs differently.
Remember that very long lines will require horizontal scrolling. Use them only when absolutely necessary. Begin by putting in exactly what you want to appear. Add HTML escape sequences and formatting commands once you have things in the correct columns. Remember that when escape sequences and formatting commands are interpreted, they do not occupy the same number of columns as they do in the source code.