<< that example is a smaller version of a much larger preformatted text page, but i assume <pre> would be same across all text sizes, regardless of tabs/spaces
i'll take a crack at the <div> tag, thanks >>
I think soccer55 got the problem right on. If you had used all spaces or all tabs, you should have be fine in IE. My guess is that Netscape is converting the tabs to x number of spaces while IE is considering the tabs to be stops at certain intervals across the screen. Personally, I would not use tabs in this sort of text, because there is no universal interpretation of them.