'All Intensive Purposes' or 'All Intents and Purposes'? For example, in 1903, Harry Dukes and William Clayton filed for a patent on a tab mechanism with multiple tab keys numbered 1, 10, 100, etc. Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words? 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.[12]. These were manually set to match the pre-printed forms that were loaded into the printer. Here are some more tab characters ! Accessed 29 Nov. 2020. Pressing the tab key would advance the carriage to the next tabulator stop. The tab key Tab ↹ (abbreviation of tabulator key[1] or tabular key)[2] on a keyboard is used to advance the cursor to the next tab stop. CSS3 defines tab-size property, which adjusts the number of spaces for the tab character from the default of eight. Pressing 1 was a simple tab. The original tabulator stops were adjustable clips that could be arranged by the user on the tabulator rack. Modern text editors usually have the Tab key insert the user-defined indentation and may use heuristics to adapt this behavior to existing files. Definition of tab key. In PC video games, the Tab key is very often used to show scores in multiplayer games. Pressing 10 advanced to the space before the tab, pressing 100 advanced to the position 2 spaces before the tab.[4]. 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:[15], LEFTWARDS ARROW TO BAR OVER RIGHTWARDS ARROW TO BAR. The word tab derives from the word tabulate, which means "to arrange data in a tabular, or table, form." In practice, settable tab stops were rather quickly replaced with fixed tab stops, de facto standardized at every multiple of 8 characters horizontally, and every six lines vertically. For example, in Microsoft Word 2010, Insert > Table > Convert Text to Table... is the necessary command, producing a dialog where the user selects further details. Often a first tab stop at 5 or 6 characters was used for this, far larger than the indentation used when typesetting. 'Nip it in the butt' or 'Nip it in the bud'. In C and many other programming languages the escape code \t can be used to put this character into a string constant. View source. Pressing the tab key would advance the carriage to the next tabulator stop. For example, in some command-line interfaces, you may type the first few characters of a command or file-name, then press Tab. 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). The Unicode code points for the (horizontal) tab character, and the more rarely used vertical tab character are copied from ASCII:[14]. Post the Definition of tab key to Facebook, Share the Definition of tab key on Twitter. Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way. 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 horizontal tab is usually inserted when the Tab key on a standard keyboard is pressed. [5] 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 the tab rack. Originally, printer mechanisms used mechanical tab stops to indicate where the tabs went. For numeric data, however, the logical place for the tab stop is the location of the least significant digit. Build a city of skyscrapers—one synonym at a time. On some systems, even if your input is ambiguous, tab completion may give you a list of possible options to select from. The tab key (short for tabulator key or tabular key) is a key on a computer keyboard, found right above the caps lock key on the far left. VT is 11 (coincidentally the same as in ASCII). T.......T.......T.......T.......T.......T.......T.......T. Notice that the tab at the start of a line is removed outside 
, the eight-character spacing, and how a tab stop is skipped if there are more than 8 characters since last one. This is rarely used or supported. Open a new tab and switch to it. Tab-separated values (TSV) are a common de facto standard[citation needed][dubious  – discuss] for exporting and importing database or spreadsheet field values. A vertical tabulation (VT) also exists and has ASCII decimal character code 11 (Ctrl+K or ^K), escape character \v. [6] These keys, if present, are typically labeled tab set and tab clear. In word processor applications, the tab key usually moves the cursor to the next tab stop. 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 the code or data. In EBCDIC the code for HT is 5. TSV has also been cited in a modern approach to solving the programming debate regarding the use of tabs and spaces for code alignment called elastic tabstops. If there is no ambiguity about your intent, the rest of the characters will appear automatically. The vertical tab is  but is not allowed in SGML[citation needed]; this includes XML 1.0[13] and HTML. The word tab derives from the word tabulate, which means "to arrange data in a tabular, or table, form." Harry S. Dukes and William H. Clayton, Tabulating mechanism for type-writing machines. For single player games it is also used to show the world map or the player's inventory (or some other useful info). The original tabulator stops were adjustable clips that could be arranged by the … Ctrl … 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. “Tab key.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tab%20key. Learn a new word every day. This line begins with a single tab. The TSV convention for exporting data may be compared to the alternative, more stable comma-separated values (CSV) convention (that may be using semicolons instead of commas), and both are easily converted into each other. [8] This idea uses a scheme called tab-separated columns (TSC) rather than the similar tab-separated values (TSV). Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Delivered to your inbox! Ctrl + W. Close the current tab. 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. On macOS, this is an option called "Full Keyboard Access". 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). A feature called tab completion can be used to complete a partially typed piece of text. Various schemes for numeric tabs were proposed. What made you want to look up tab key?  To simplify this, a horizontal bar was placed in the mechanism called the tabulator rack. It is used to take the cursor to the next tab stop . 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. Tab completion is more common on Linux, Unix, and Unix-like systems than Windows. 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.