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Tab Stop

Webopedia Staff
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:56 am

A stop point for tabbing. In word processing, each line contains a number of tab stops placed at regular intervals (for example, every half inch). They can be changed, however, as most word processors allow you to set tab stops wherever you want. When you press the Tab key, the cursor or insertion point jumps to the next tab stop, which itself is invisible. Although tab stops do not exist in the text file, the word processor keeps track of them so that it can react correctly to the Tab key.