What are some potential pitfalls to consider when formatting text from a database in PHP?

When formatting text from a database in PHP, one potential pitfall to consider is the presence of special characters that could break the formatting. To avoid this issue, you can use the `htmlspecialchars()` function to escape special characters before displaying the text on the webpage. This function will convert characters like <, >, ", ', and & into their HTML entities, ensuring that the text is displayed correctly.

$text = $row['text_from_database']; // Retrieve text from database
$formatted_text = htmlspecialchars($text); // Escape special characters
echo $formatted_text; // Display the formatted text