A tab stop on a typewriter

Typewriter

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...

 is a location where the carriage movement is halted by mechanical gears. Tab stops are set manually, and pressing the tab key

Tab key

Tab key on a keyboard is used to advance the cursor to the next tab stop.- Origin :The word tab derives from the word tabulate, which means "to arrange data in a tabular, or table, form"...

 causes the carriage to go to the next tab stop. In text editor

Text editor

A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code....

s on a computer, the same concept is implemented simplistically with automatic, fixed tab stops.

Modern word processor

Word processor

A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....

s generalize this concept by offering tab stops that have an alignment attribute and cause the text to be automatically aligned at left, at right or center of the tab stop itself. Such tab stops are paragraph

Paragraph

A paragraph is a self-contained unit of a discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea. A paragraph consists of one or more sentences. The start of a paragraph is indicated by beginning on a new line. Sometimes the first line is indented...

-specific properties and can be moved to a different location in any moment, or even removed.

Types of tab stops

A tab stop is a horizontal position which is set for placing and aligning text on a page. There are at least five kinds of tab stops in general usage in word processing.

Left: text extends to the right from the tab stop.
Center: text is centered at the tab stop.
Right: text extends to the left from the tab stop until the tab's space is filled, and then the text extends to the right.
Decimal: text before the decimal point extends to the left, and text after the decimal point extends to the right.
Bar: a vertical line at the specified position on each line in a document.

Elastic tabstops

In 2006 Nick Gravgaard invented elastic tabstop

Elastic tabstop

In text editor applications in computing, elastic tabstops are an alternative way to handle tabstops, with a primary focus on editing source code in computer programming. The idea was first proposed by Nick Gravgaard as a solution for programmers who argue about what kind of indentation is best;...

s. He also has written 2 plugins for Gedit

Gedit

gedit is a text editor for the GNOME desktop environment, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Designed as a general purpose text editor, gedit emphasizes simplicity and ease of use...

 implementing elastic tabstops. Elastic tabstops are also implemented in the "tabwriter" package of Go (programming language)

Go (programming language)

Go is a compiled, garbage-collected, concurrent programming language developed by Google Inc.The initial design of Go was started in September 2007 by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson. Go was officially announced in November 2009. In May 2010, Rob Pike publicly stated that Go was being...

.

See also

• Tab key
  Tab key
  Tab key on a keyboard is used to advance the cursor to the next tab stop.- Origin :The word tab derives from the word tabulate, which means "to arrange data in a tabular, or table, form"...
  
   for the computer key and character
• Typewriter
  Typewriter
  A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
  
   for the originating device
• Word processor
  Word processor
  A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
  
   for a modern tool
• Typographic alignment
  Typographic alignment
  In typesetting and page layout, alignment or range, is the setting of text flow or image placement relative to a page, column , table cell or tab...
  
   for an application
• Table (information)
  Table (information)
  A table is a means of arranging data in rows and columns.Production % of goalNorth 4087102%South 4093110% The use of tables is pervasive throughout all communication, research and data analysis. Tables appear in print media, handwritten notes, computer software, architectural...
  
   for another application
• Indentation
  Indentation
  An indentation may refer to:* A notch, or deep recesses; for instance in a coastline, or a carving in rock* The placement of text farther to the right to separate it from surrounding text....
  
  for an application within text