Expected behaviour: when multiple lines are selected in a document, and the “Tab” key on the keyboard is struck, all selected lines will move in to the next tab stop.
Current behaviour: when multiple lines are selected and the “Tab” key is struck, all text is deleted and replaced with a single tab.
Is there a way I can set the Tab key to behave in the expected way, not the way that LibreOffice is making it delete all selected text?
This behaviour is common to many text-handling programs. Tab key produces a U+0009 HORIZONTAL TAB character. It is a data character. Therefore, it is expected that this data replaces the selection, just like any typed text replaces it.
Many decades ago, ANSI X3.64 made a distinction between format effector and editor function but warned against the unpredictability of result when using editor functions. The diference at that time was legitimate because edit control was made “in band” with the keyboard. Nowadays formatting is usually done “out-of-band” with the mouse or other procedures.
Apparently, you want to modify or tune some layout. This is the responsibility of styles. In the present case, paragraph styles are the adequate tool because they deal with tab stops.
However, tab stops are rarely the correct way to address such a layout. You probably want to change the left indent, the left space belonging to a paragraph added to the page margin. This is defined in the paragraph style and does not involve tabulation. All you need to do is to modify the left indent property.
It is likely you don’t practice styling. You can change manually the left indent by dragging the left triangular indent cursor in the ruler above the text (after selecting all lines). But this workflow, called direct formatting, is not recommended.
PS: when asking here, always mention OS name, LO exact release and save format.
Thanks for that clarification, @ajlittoz . I am familiar with paragraph styles; this was a use case where Tab would have been easier, but now that you’ve clarified that LibreOffice doesn’t handle the Tab key in the expected way, I’ll look at setting those up instead.
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