Options (Text Editor/Plain Text/Tabs Page)

  • Article

Use this dialog to change the tabbing behavior of the Text Editor, which is used to edit a document not associated with a particular development language. To display these settings, click Options on the Tools menu, expand Text Editor, expand Plain Text, and then click Tabs.

Setting Options in Multiple Locations

Options for the Plain Text Editor can also be set in the All Languages General dialog. If you use the All Languages dialogs to set different options for the other SQL Server Management Studio editors, such as the DMX or MDX editors, you must reset the Plain Text Editor options using this dialog.

Indenting

  • None
    Do not indent the new line created when you press ENTER. The cursor is placed at the first column of the new line.

  • Block
    Indent the new line created when you press ENTER the same distance as the previous line was indented.

  • Smart
    The plain text editor does not support this type of formatting.

Tabs

  • Tab size
    Set the distance in spaces between tab stops. The default is four spaces.

  • Indent size
    Set the size in spaces of an automatic indentation. The default is four spaces. Tab characters, space characters, or both will be inserted to fill the specified size.

  • Insert spaces
    Insert only space characters, not tab characters, when indenting. If Indent size is set to 5, for example, five space characters are inserted whenever you press the TAB key or the Increase Indent button on the Formatting toolbar.

  • Keep tabs
    Insert as many tab characters as possible when indenting. Each tab character fills the number of spaces specified in Tab size. If Indent size is not an even multiple of the Tab size, space characters are added to fill in the difference.