Insert Tab

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Menu: Edit > Insert > Tab

 

Default Shortcut Key: Tab

 

Macro function: Tab()

 

The Insert Tab command inserts a Tab (character value 9) at the text cursor location.  After insertion, the text cursor moves to the next tabstop, as determined by the Tab Display Size.

 

If the Tab key has been configured to insert Spaces, an equivalent number of Spaces will be inserted instead of a Tab.  The option which controls this behavior appears on the Configure | Preferences | Editing options page.  The option is titled Tab key inserts spaces

 

The Configure | Preferences | Editing page also contains an option for the Tab key to insert Spaces and obtain its tabstops from the line above.  When this option is used, the Tab key will advance the text cursor to the next field of data as determined from the line above the current line.  This option is especially useful when editing tabular data within a table or chart.

 

Boxer's default Tab Display Size is 4, which permits program source code with several indent levels to be displayed without exceeding the screen width.  Many other programs, and most printers, will treat Tabs as having a display size of 8.  You may need to make adjustments in order to print or display files with another program which does not use a Tab display size of 4.  One remedy could be to use the Tabs to Spaces command to convert a copy of the file before using it with the other program. Note that Boxer's Print command will automatically convert Tabs to Spaces before sending its data to the printer, so there will be no such difficulty when printing files from within Boxer.

 

Tabs, Spaces and Newline characters can be made visible with the Visible Spaces command.

 

bm2If the Insert Tab command is issued when a range of lines is selected, the Indent one Tabstop command will be performed.  If a small selection is present on a single line the selection will be replaced with a Tab character.