Question

Is there any way in Eclipse (Galileo 3.52) to have it replace tabs with spaces (“soft tabs”)? I’ve tried two things so far . . .

Windows>Preferences>Editors>Text Editors… check “Insert spaces for tabs”

…and…

Window->Preferences->Java->Code Style->Formatter->Edit… “Use Spaces to indent wrapped lines”

(… this forces you to create a new profile to save these settings)

This produces partial success – the first tab is turned in to spaces but subsequent ones are still tabs. So if I type

tabtab 1234

…I end up with…

spacespacespacespace tab 1234

Answer 1

You can do:

1. Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Code Style -> Formatter
2. Click on “Show” button (or “Edit”) right beside the name of the profile you are using.
3. In the indentantion Tab, change the “Tab Policy” field to “spaces only”
4. Click Ok, and save the profile with the name you want.