Characters like < act as code so the html code is operated by the browser and won't show as text in your page.
Substitute < for < (and perhaps do the same for lots of other characters) and the html code will show as text. See
http://www.tedmontgomery.com/tutorial/HTMLchrc.html
So instead of <br> you type <br> or <br> (I usually find that just changing the first character is enough as it disrupts the code as operated by the browser but you should really change them all).
Code downloaded to my PC will be deleted in due course.
WIN7; IE9, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari for Windows; screen resolution usually 1366*768.
Also IE6 on W98 with 800*600 and IE8 on Vista 1440*900.