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<title>Tabs and Leaders (The GNU Troff Manual)</title>
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Next: <a href="Input-Conventions.html" accesskey="n" rel="next">Input Conventions</a>, Previous: <a href="Adjustment.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Adjustment</a>, Up: <a href="Text.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Text</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Request-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<h4 class="subsection" id="Tabs-and-Leaders-1">5.1.6 Tabs and Leaders</h4>
<a class="index-entry-id" id="index-horizontal-tab-character"></a>
<a class="index-entry-id" id="index-tab-character"></a>
<a class="index-entry-id" id="index-character_002c-horizontal-tab"></a>
<a class="index-entry-id" id="index-leader-character"></a>
<a class="index-entry-id" id="index-character_002c-leader"></a>
<a class="index-entry-id" id="index-tab-stops"></a>
<a class="index-entry-id" id="index-stops_002c-tab"></a>
<p>GNU <code class="code">troff</code> translates input horizontal tab characters (“tabs”)
and <kbd class="key">Control+A</kbd> characters (“leaders”) into movements to the next
tab stop. Tabs simply move to the next tab stop; leaders place enough
periods to fill the space. Tab stops are by default located every half
inch measured from the drawing position corresponding to the beginning
of the input line; see <a class="ref" href="Page-Geometry.html">Page Geometry</a>. Tabs and leaders do not
cause breaks and therefore do not interrupt filling. Below, we use
arrows → and bullets • to indicate input tabs and
leaders, respectively.
</p>
<div class="example">
<div class="group"><pre class="example-preformatted">1
→ 2 → 3 • 4
→ • 5
⇒ 1 2 3.......4 ........5
</pre></div></div>
<p>Tabs and leaders lend themselves to table construction.<a class="footnote" id="DOCF24" href="groff.html_fot.html#FOOT24"><sup>24</sup></a> The tab and leader glyphs can be
configured, and further facilities for sophisticated table composition
are available; see <a class="ref" href="Tabs-and-Fields.html">Tabs and Fields</a>. There are many details to
track when using such low-level features, so most users turn to the
<cite class="cite">tbl<span class="r">(1)</span></cite> preprocessor to lay out tables.
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