How to remove the blank lines before and after html pre-formatted text?

I want to insert pre-formatted text into html text, but the renderer insists on adding blank lines before and after the pre-formatted text. For example, this html code:

<html>
<body>
Before text
<pre>
Line 1: Pre-formatted text
Line 2: Pre-formatted text
</pre>
After text
</body>
</html>

results in this output:

Before text

Line 1: Pre-formatted text
Line 2: Pre-formatted text

After text

Is there any way of getting rid of the leading and trailing blank lines? If I'd wanted them, I could have put them in myself!

Solution

There are many suggestions in the possible duplicates posted in the comments. The solution that works for me is to replace <pre> with <pre style="margin:0">, and to add <br> outside the pre-formatted text to compensate as required.