I wondered what lay behind Jack's question. I found this - look at the latest post:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=137732

The problem seems to be that using PRE on mudcat puts a space at the start of each line. It's because the BR tag generates a following space - and the PRE generates a following BR! These spaces are usually ignored but in a PRE block they will appear.

Apart from fixing mudcat, a workround if you want to copy these ABCs would be to use Privoxy. It can filter html on the fly and could remove the spaces; take a look at 'external-filter' in the documentation.

I could also envisage a 'smart copy' add-on that removes them.

(Apologies for jumping into your thread, Mr Red.)