diff --git a/example/settings.toml b/example/settings.toml
index 2e2c77f..8d3ad6d 100644
--- a/example/settings.toml
+++ b/example/settings.toml
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ relative_css=["./style.css", "./timeline.css"]
 accepted_images= ["jpg", "JPG", "png", "PNG"]
 # true = add <p></p> tags to each line.
 tag_paragraphs=true
+# apply <p> tags even if a line contains the following
+inline_tags = ["i", "em", "b", "strong","u", "s", "a", "span"]
 # adds <br> or user defined string between each line
 # line_separator="<br>"
 format="""
diff --git a/microblog.py b/microblog.py
index 3b51bd7..bb1ba53 100644
--- a/microblog.py
+++ b/microblog.py
@@ -56,18 +56,18 @@ def make_gallery(indices, w, conf=None):
 # apply basic HTML formatting - only div class here is gallery
 from html.parser import HTMLParser
 class My_Html_Parser(HTMLParser):
-    def __init__(self):
+    def __init__(self, ignore_list):
         super().__init__()
         self.stack        = []
         self.completed_by = ""
+        # ignore common inline tags
+        self.ignore = ignore_list
 
     def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs):
         self.stack.append(tag)
         self.is_completed_by = ""
 
     def handle_endtag(self, tag):
-        # ignore common inline tags
-        ignore = ["i", "em", "b", "strong","u", "s", "a", "span"]
         # remove an item == tag from the end of the list
         i    = len(self.stack) - 1
         last = self.stack[i]
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ class My_Html_Parser(HTMLParser):
                 break
             i -= 1
             last = self.stack[i]
-        if self.stack == [] and tag not in ignore:
+        if self.stack == [] and tag not in self.ignore:
             self.completed_by = "</%s>" % tag
 
 from html import escape
@@ -127,8 +127,11 @@ def markup(message, config):
     output = []
     gallery = []
     ptags = config["tag_paragraphs"]
+    ignore = []
+    if "inline_tags" in config:
+        ignore = config["inline_tags"]
+    parser = My_Html_Parser(ignore)
     sep = ""
-    parser = My_Html_Parser()
     if "line_separator" in config:
         sep = config["line_separator"]
     for line in message: