Working With Tabs

Three properties determine how tabs are handled by the Source Editor:

To set the tab properties:

To convert existing tab characters to spaces:

  1. Choose Tools and choose Options and expand the Editing node. Then expand the Editor Settings node and select the type of editor you are using.
  2. Click the Indentation Engine property, and then click the ellipsis (...) button to display the Indentation Engine property editor.
  3. In the Indentation Engine property editor, choose Java Indentation Engine and set Expand Tabs to Spaces to True.
  4. Click OK.
  5. In the Source Editor, select the text containing tabs you want to convert to spaces.
  6. Reformat the text by pressing Ctrl-Shift-F or right-click and choose Reformat Code from the contextual window.
Tip You can convert spaces to tab characters by following the above steps, but setting Expand Tabs to Spaces to False.
See also
Source Editor Properties
Indentation Properties

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