diff -r 5e45dfc421e4 Lib/cgitb.py
--- a/Lib/cgitb.py	Sat Nov 19 16:27:22 2011 +0000
+++ b/Lib/cgitb.py	Mon Nov 21 09:28:26 2011 -0500
@@ -292,13 +292,17 @@
         if self.logdir is not None:
             suffix = ['.txt', '.html'][self.format=="html"]
             (fd, path) = tempfile.mkstemp(suffix=suffix, dir=self.logdir)
+
+            if self.format == 'html':
+                self.file.write('<p>')
+
             try:
                 file = os.fdopen(fd, 'w')
                 file.write(doc)
                 file.close()
-                msg = '<p> %s contains the description of this error.' % path
+                msg = '%s contains the description of this error.' % path
             except:
-                msg = '<p> Tried to save traceback to %s, but failed.' % path
+                msg = 'Tried to save traceback to %s, but failed.' % path
             self.file.write(msg + '\n')
         try:
             self.file.flush()
diff -r 5e45dfc421e4 Lib/test/test_cgitb.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_cgitb.py	Sat Nov 19 16:27:22 2011 +0000
+++ b/Lib/test/test_cgitb.py	Mon Nov 21 09:28:26 2011 -0500
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 import unittest
 import sys
 import subprocess
+import tempfile
 import cgitb
 
 class TestCgitb(unittest.TestCase):
@@ -37,15 +38,31 @@
             self.assertIn("Hello World", text)
 
     def test_hook(self):
+        tracedir = tempfile.gettempdir()
+        # Ensure HTML is printed when format is not set. The default case is
+        # to assume the caller wants HTML markup.
         proc = subprocess.Popen([sys.executable, '-c',
                                  ('import cgitb;'
-                                  'cgitb.enable();'
-                                  'raise ValueError("Hello World")')],
+                                  'cgitb.enable(logdir="%s");'
+                                  'raise ValueError("Hello World")' % tracedir)],
                                 stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
         out = proc.stdout.read().decode(sys.getfilesystemencoding())
         self.addCleanup(proc.stdout.close)
         self.assertIn("ValueError", out)
         self.assertIn("Hello World", out)
+        self.assertIn('<p>', out)
+
+        # Ensure HTML is not printed when requesting text formatting.
+        proc = subprocess.Popen([sys.executable, '-c',
+                                 ('import cgitb;'
+                                  'cgitb.enable(format="text", logdir="%s");'
+                                  'raise ValueError("Hello World")' % tracedir)],
+                                stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
+        out = proc.stdout.read().decode(sys.getfilesystemencoding())
+        self.addCleanup(proc.stdout.close)
+        self.assertIn("ValueError", out)
+        self.assertIn("Hello World", out)
+        self.assertNotIn('<p>', out)
 
 
 def test_main():