newbie: saving meta data entered in forms (html forms)

php 4

If i create a simple form in xhtml/php and users saves the data they entered
in the form to a database. Then meta data (hidden characters describing how
the text shall be displayed - ie <br>, <bold> etc) in the form isn't
saved....

So my question is how should this be done (in other words: if you have a
link to info describing how to solve this problem, then please send it to
me...)???

Jeff