Help!

I've just set up my Apache server with mySql and PHP, and for the most part 
everything works fine, except:

I can't embed PHP in an HTML file  (if my server starts up with INDEX.HTML I 
can't do anything with PHP, is this possible, or am I just off the deepend 
here?)

Also, when I run a PHP file, it doesn't seem to pay any attention to the \n 
in the echo or print statements.  I copied the examples straight from the 
examples on PHP.Net, and I installed everything exactly as the instructions 
said to, but from reading all the comments and such, it appears I'm the only 
one having these problems?  What's going on/what am I doing wrong?