How to insert tab character when expandtab option is on in Vim

Question

When I m in insert mode and I have the expandtab option switched on  pressing Tab   results in inserting the configured number of spaces   But occasionally I want to insert an actual tab character   Do you know how to do this

User · Accepted Answer

You can use  lt CTRL-V gt  lt Tab gt  in  insert mode   In insert mode   lt CTRL-V gt  inserts a literal copy of your next character   If you need to do this often   Dee Kej suggested  in the comments  setting Shift Tab to insert a real tab with this mapping    inoremap  lt S-Tab gt   lt C-V gt  lt Tab gt    Also  as noted by  feedbackloop  on Windows you may need to press  lt CTRL-Q gt  rather than  lt CTRL-V gt

User · Answer

From the documentation on expandtab      To insert a real tab when expandtab is on  use CTRL-V lt Tab gt   See also  retab and ins-expandtab    This option is reset when the paste   option is set and restored when the paste option is reset    So if you have a mapping for toggling the paste option  e g   set pastetoggle  lt F2 gt    you could also do  lt F2 gt Tab lt F2 gt

User · Answer

You can disable expandtab option from within Vim as below:

:set expandtab!

or

:set noet

PS: And set it back when you are done with inserting tab, with "set expandtab" or "set et"

PS: If you have tab set equivalent to 4 spaces in .vimrc (softtabstop), you may also like to set it to 8 spaces in order to be able to insert a tab by pressing tab key once instead of twice (set softtabstop=8).

[vim] How to insert tab character when expandtab option is on in Vim

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