excerpt tag / breaking long posts..

Maybe Im using it incorectly, but I want to break up long posts, and still have the HTMl and images in the excerpts.

If im correct though… you replace the content tag with the excerpt tag in your index, and then paste the except text into the excerpt box under the main post in the control panel.

How can I keep it from disabling html though? I thought options were only for previous versions of WordPress according to the website.

thanx!