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**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 24, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-text-area-values-in-html/172653 "2009-07-24T17:05:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@c\_dekker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/c_dekker)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-text-area-values-in-html/172653/1 "2009-07-24T17:05:56Z")
This is one of those problems thats probably too simple to be written
down somewhere and that is why I cant find it in any help or through
google.
I have a model which has a description. This description is entered
through a text\_area (multiline). For example:
===
This is line one.
# This ie line two
Now whenever I want to display this value read-only in one of my views I
cant simply do \<%= @model.description %\>. This will cause the text to be
printed as:
‘This is line one.This is line two’
How do I get the text to be displayed correctly with, I guess, HTML
and other escape characters included? Im sure there should be a
helper or something that accomplishes this already in Rails 2.3.2
---
**Author:**  [@c\_dekker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/c_dekker)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-text-area-values-in-html/172653/2 "2009-07-24T18:05:31Z")
On Jul 24, 4:05 pm, “C, D.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:
> Now whenever I want to display this value read-only in one of my views I
> cant simply do \<%= @model.description %\>. This will cause the text to be
> printed as:
> ‘This is line one.This is line two’
>
> How do I get the text to be displayed correctly with, I guess, HTML
>
> and other escape characters included? Im sure there should be a
> helper or something that accomplishes this already in Rails 2.3.2
simple\_format does that.
Fred