Tabs behaving strangely

[Aardvark]

Dear all,

I type in Monday, the text insertion point is after the y. I put a tab in
at 2inches say, and press tab and Monday jumps. Why?

Perplexed,

Danny

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

In Word, a tab is an instruction [to Word] to align the next thing you type
either with preset tabs (every half inch is the default in the U.S. version
of Word) or with whatever tabs you might have set.

Unlike in some text editors, a tab doesn't insert a fixed number of spaces.
Rather, the intent is to allow you to align text vertically without using
spaces. When using spaces to align proportionally spaced text, results are
unpredictable. Using tabs or tables (note that tab, tabular and table all
come from the same root word), however, give you more consistency in
formatting.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Make sure you don't have "Tabs and backspace set left indent" checked on the
Edit tab of Tools | Options (Word 2000 and earlier) or "Set first- and
left-indent with tabs and backspaces" checked on the AutoFormat As You Type
tab of Tools | AutoCorrect Options (Word 2002 and above).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
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