How do I change Eclipse to use spaces instead of tabs?

Brian_Deacon_409 0
Viewed 545571

By default Eclipse indents with a hard tab character. How do I change it to spaces?

tabs whitespace formatting eclipse
22 Answers

Java Editor

  1. Click Window » Preferences
  2. Expand Java » Code Style
  3. Click Formatter
  4. Click the Edit button
  5. Click the Indentation tab
  6. Under General Settings, set Tab policy to: Spaces only
  7. Click OK ad nauseam to apply the changes.

[Note: If necessary save profile with a new name as the default profile cannot be overwritten.]

Default Text Editor

Before version 3.6:

Window->Preferences->Editors->Text Editors->Insert spaces for tabs

Version 3.6 and later:

  1. Click Window » Preferences
  2. Expand General » Editors
  3. Click Text Editors
  4. Check Insert spaces for tabs
  5. Click OK ad nauseam to apply the changes.

Note that the default text editor is used as the basis for many non-Java editors in Eclipse. It's astonishing that this setting wasn't available until 3.3.

C / C++

  1. Click Window » Preferences
  2. Expand C/C++ » Code Style
  3. Click Formatter
  4. Click the New button to create a new profile, then OK to continue
  5. Click the Indentation tab
  6. Under General Settings, set Tab policy to: Spaces only
  7. Click OK ad nauseam to apply the changes.

HTML

  1. Click Window » Preferences
  2. Expand Web » HTML Files
  3. Click Editor
  4. Under Formatting, select the Indent using spaces radio button
  5. Click OK to apply the changes.

CSS

Follow the same instructions for HTML, but select CSS Files instead of HTML Files.

JSP

By default, JSP files follow the formatting preferences for HTML Files.

XML

XML files spacing is configured in Preferences.

  1. Click Window » Preferences
  2. Expand XML » XML Files
  3. Click Editor
  4. Select Indent using spaces
  5. You can specify the Indentation size if needed: number of spaces to indent.
Dave_Ray_403100
Brian_Deacon_4090

Go to Window -> Preferences and type tab as the search text (which will display a dialog like below):

enter image description here

Go to the highlighted sections to change the tab policy. For the Editor settings it is mostly Indent using spaces (also shown above).

For Formatter settings you need to edit the active profile and update Tab policy (available under `Indentation -> General settings:

enter image description here

user_15948230

You can definitely use XML file to configure your formatter of the coding style. The formatter file helps you to have the same coding style and guidelines across your team members.

Adding these below setting variables would have a tab= 2 spaces and convert to space even you probably use Tab shorthand key when coding using Eclipse.

<setting id="org.eclipse.jdt.core.formatter.tabulation.size" value="2"/>
<setting id="org.eclipse.jdt.core.formatter.tabulation.char" value="space"/>    
<setting id="org.eclipse.jdt.core.formatter.use_tabs_only_for_leading_indentations" value="yes"/>

Best,

user_121744400

Here is a way using the Eclipse Formatter:

enter image description here

user_57489820

As an augmentation to the other answers, on Mac OS X, the "Preferences" menu is under Eclipse, not Window (unlike Windows/Linux Eclipse distributions). Everything else is still the same as pointed out by other answers past this point.

IE: Java Formatter available under:

Eclipse >      | # Not Window!
Preferences >  |
Java >         |
Code Style >   |
Formatter      |

From here, edit the formatter and the tab policy can be set under "Indentation".

user_16017290
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