The tab key Tab ↹ (abbreviation of tabulator key or tabular key ) on a keyboard is used to advance the cursor to the next tab stop .
31-530: (Redirected from Tables ) For use of tables to display information in Misplaced Pages, see Misplaced Pages:Tables . "Tabular" redirects here. For the typewriter key, see tab key . For the bone at the back of the skull, see tabular bone . [REDACTED] Look up table or tabular in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Table may refer to: Table (database) , how
62-407: A form of data compression. Despite the fact that five characters were the typical paragraph indentation on typewriters at that time, the horizontal tab size of eight evolved because as a power of two it was easier to calculate with the limited digital electronics available. Using this size tab to indent code results in much white space on the left, so most text editors for code, such as IDEs , allow
93-424: A horizontal bar was placed in the mechanism called the tabulator rack. Pressing the tab key would advance the carriage to the next tabulator stop . The original tabulator stops were adjustable clips that could be arranged by the user on the tabulator rack. Fredric Hillard filed a patent application for such a mechanism in 1900. The tab mechanism came into its own as a rapid and consistent way of uniformly indenting
124-495: A partially typed piece of text. For example, in some command-line interfaces , you may type the first few characters of a command or file-name, then press Tab. If there is no ambiguity about your intent, the rest of the characters will appear automatically. On some systems, even if your input is ambiguous, tab completion may give you a list of possible options to select from. Tab completion is more common on Linux , Unix , and Unix-like systems than Windows . In PC video games ,
155-474: A patent on a tab mechanism with multiple tab keys numbered 1, 10, 100, etc. Pressing 1 was a simple tab. Pressing 10 advanced to the space before the tab, pressing 100 advanced to the position 2 spaces before the tab. Initially tab stops were set by adding and removing clips from the tab rack, but Edward Hess working for the Royal Typewriter Company filed for a patent in 1904 covering a system where
186-447: Is a key on a typewriter or alphanumeric keyboard in the form of a horizontal bar in the lowermost row, significantly wider than all other keys. Its main purpose is to conveniently enter a space , e.g., between words during typing . Originally, (on early writers dating back to the late 19th century) the "bar" was literally a metal bar running across the full width of the keyboard (or even wider, and even surrounding it) that triggered
217-416: Is an example: This line begins with a single tab. Here are some more tab characters ! T.......T.......T.......T.......T.......T.......T.......T Notice that the tab at the start of a line is removed outside <pre> , the eight-character spacing, and how a tab stop is skipped if there are more than eight characters since last one. CSS3 defines tab-size property, which adjusts
248-415: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Tab key The word tab derives from the word tabulate , which means "to arrange data in a tabular, or table, form." When a person wanted to type a table (of numbers or text) on a typewriter , there was a lot of time-consuming and repetitive use of the space bar and backspace key. To simplify this,
279-421: Is the necessary command, producing a dialog where the user selects further details. The TSV convention for exporting data may be compared to the alternative comma-separated values (CSV) convention (that may be using semicolons instead of commas), and both are easily converted into each other. Gopher menus use tab-separated values to indicate selectors. TSV has also been cited in a modern approach to solving
310-523: The Alt key (or Command keys on Macintosh keyboards ) and below the letter keys: C, V, B, N and M on a standard QWERTY keyboard . In some keyboards, both physical and specially virtual ones, the U+ 2423 ␣ OPEN BOX symbol is used to label the space bar. Some early typewriter and particularly computer keyboards used a different method of inserting spaces, typically a smaller, less distinct "space" key which
341-746: The sound board (music) of a string instrument Al-Ma'ida , the fifth surah of the Qur'an, occasionally translated as “The Table” Calligra Tables , a spreadsheet application Water table See also [ edit ] Spreadsheet , a computer application Table cut, a type of diamond cut The Table (disambiguation) Table Mountain (disambiguation) Table Rock (disambiguation) Tabler (disambiguation) Tablet (disambiguation) All pages with titles beginning with Table All pages with titles containing Table All pages with titles beginning with Tabular All pages with titles containing Tabular Topics referred to by
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#1732852663059372-430: The (horizontal) tab character, and the more rarely used vertical tab character are copied from ASCII : The tab characters can be graphically represented by special symbols : Unicode also has characters for the symbols to represent or be printed on the tab key: Unicode provides additional characters for tab symbols with triangle-headed arrow: Space bar The space bar , spacebar , blank , or space key ,
403-476: The Tab key is very often used to show scores in multiplayer games. For single player games it is also used to show the in-game world map or the player's inventory, as well as other useful information. In software engineering , when developing computer programs or storing and manipulating data in files, the Tab character is often used for indentation purposes to help guide the flow of reading and add semantic structure to
434-431: The carriage advance without also firing any of the typebars towards the platen . Later examples gradually shrank and developed into their current more ergonomic form as a wide, centrally located but otherwise apparently normal "key", as typewriter (and computer) keyboards began to incorporate additional function keys and were more deliberately "styled". Although it varies by keyboard type, the space bar usually lies between
465-474: The code for HT is 5. VT is 11 (coincidentally the same as in ASCII). Originally, printer mechanisms used mechanical tab stops to indicate where the tabs went. This was done horizontally with movable metal prongs in a row, and vertically with a loop of mylar or other tape the length of a page with holes punched in it to indicate the tab stops. These were manually set to match the pre-printed forms that were loaded into
496-488: The code or data. Some programmers and programming languages prefer the usage of multiple whitespace characters instead for that purpose. Because of this, many text editors have an option that makes the tab key insert the number of whitespace characters that a tab character is set to be equivalent to (by default mostly four). The most known and common tab is a horizontal tabulation (HT) or character tabulation , which in ASCII has
527-544: The cursor to the previous field), eliminating the need to use a mouse to click in an adjacent field. In many graphical applications, especially on Windows , the Tab key will move the focus to every control or widget such as buttons so that the user interface can be used without a mouse at all (this was part of the IBM Common User Access design). On macOS , this is an option called "Full Keyboard Access". A feature called tab completion can be used to complete
558-461: The decimal character code of 9, and may be referred to as Ctrl + I or ^I . In C and many other programming languages the escape sequence \t can be used to put this character into a string literal . The horizontal tab is usually inserted when the Tab key on a standard keyboard is pressed. A vertical tabulation (VT) also exists and has ASCII decimal character code 11 ( Ctrl + K or ^K ), escape character \v . In EBCDIC
589-505: The first line of each paragraph. Often a first tab stop at 5 or 6 characters was used for this, far larger than the indentation used when typesetting. For numeric data, however, the logical place for the tab stop is the location of the least significant digit. Tabbing to this location and then pressing the backspace key to back up to the position of the first digit is practical but slow. Various schemes for numeric tabs were proposed. For example, in 1903, Harry Dukes and William Clayton filed for
620-527: The number of spaces for the tab character from the default of eight. The latest version of WebKit supports the tab-size property. The Opera web browser supports the -o-tab-size CSS property, the Firefox web browser supports the -moz-tab-size CSS property with the same meaning. The vertical tab is  but is not allowed in SGML ; this includes XML 1.0 and HTML. The Unicode code points for
651-417: The printer. In practice, settable tab stops were rather quickly replaced with fixed tab stops, de facto standardized at every multiple of eight characters horizontally, and every six lines vertically. A printing program could send zero or more tabs to get to the closest tab stop above and left of where it wanted to print, then send line feeds and spaces to get to the final location. Tab characters simply became
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#1732852663059682-459: The program to set and clear tab stops. This is rarely used or supported. Tab-separated values (TSV) are used for exporting and importing database or spreadsheet field values. Text divided into fields delimited by tabs can often be pasted into a word processor and formatted into a table with a single command. For example, in Microsoft Word 2010, Insert > Table > Convert Text to Table...
713-563: The programming debate regarding the use of tabs and spaces for code alignment called elastic tabstops . This idea uses a scheme called tab-separated columns (TSC) rather than the similar tab-separated values (TSV). In HTML the horizontal tab is coded using 	 or 	 but as with all whitespace characters in HTML, this will be displayed as a single space except inside <pre> , <code> tags (or other elements with CSS attribute white-space set to pre ). Here
744-461: The same line (e.g. Sinclair Spectrum 128k and "Plus" lines, which adopted more "normally styled" keyboards with plastic keytops and a wide, central space bar in place of the earlier rubber "chiclet" keys and small, offset space key). Depending on the operating system , the space bar used with a modifier key such as the control key may have functions such as resizing or closing the current window , half-spacing, or even backspacing. On web browsers,
775-407: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Table . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Table&oldid=1258612743 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
806-539: The size of the tab to be changed, and some (in particular on Windows) default to four instead of eight. Disagreements between programmers about what size tabs are correct , and whether to use tabs at all, are common. Modern text editors usually have the Tab key insert the user-defined indentation and may use heuristics to adapt this behavior to existing files. ISO 6429 includes the codes 136 (Horizontal Tabulation Set), 137 (Horizontal Tabulation with Justification) and 138 (Vertical Tabulation Set) that were intended to allow
837-458: The space bar usually allows the user to page down or to page up when the space bar is used with the Shift key . In many programs for playback of linear media (such as videos or music), the space bar is used for pausing and resuming playback, or for manually advancing through text. In video games where the playable character can move and jump, the default key to jump is usually the space bar. This
868-483: The tab rack. These keys, if present, are typically labeled tab set and tab clear . In word processing and text editing , the Tab key will move the insertion point to the next tab stop in a table, insert the ASCII tab character, or insert multiple space characters (depending on the program used). When filling out a computerized form, pressing Tab will sometimes move the cursor to the next field (and Shift-Tab will move
899-405: The tab stops were permanently mounted on the tab bar. To set or reset a tab for a particular column, the tab stop for that column was simply rotated in or out of engagement. In 1940, James Koca filed for a patent on a mechanism allowing the tab stops for each column to be set and cleared from the keyboard, eliminating the need for the typist to bend over the back of the machine to directly manipulate
930-421: The table data arrangement is used within the databases Table (furniture) , a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs Table (information) , a data arrangement with rows and columns Table (landform) , a flat area of land Table (parliamentary procedure) Table (sports) , a ranking of the teams in a sports league Tables (board game) Mathematical table Table, surface of
961-729: Was also often set in a less central position, e.g. the Hansen Writing Ball , Hammond typewriters or the ZX Spectrum and Jupiter Ace ranges. The earliest known example, Sholes and Glidden typewriter used a lever to provide space between words, placing the invention of the inset space bar after 1843. However these methods were also usually just one part of similarly idiosyncratic full keyboard layouts, designed more to cope with particular technical requirements or limitations than with any sense of user friendliness and as such met with limited success, sometimes being dropped even on later models in