Tabs can be used to organize and align text and collections of data.
Copying the practice document
If you are beginning this course at this point, you will need to copy the practice document to your Google Drive.
NOTE: If you have been working through the course, your file should be up to date and you will not need to copy the practice document. You may continue at Adding a tab-stop.
- To begin copying the practice document in a new browser window,
Right-click Copy practice document, Click Open link in new window
The file begins to open in a new window of the web browser. Before the document will open and can be edited, we need to make a copy of it.
Move to the new browser window.
- To copy the document file, in the browser window,
Click 
A copy of the file is now open and, by default, is saved in your Google Drive. The filename now has the words "Copy of" at the beginning.
Adding a tab-stop
Our document contains a list of important dates in LEGO history. The original author of this document created the list by typing the event, pressing Tab, and then typing the year. Because of the variation in the length of the events, the dates are not lined up and the list is a jumble of events and dates. We can use tab-stops, and the ruler, to organize this information into two columns.
Tab-stops are applied to the selected paragraph. While we could set a tab-stop for each line of the list, it will be easier, and faster, to select the list and set the tab-stop a single time. Before we do that, let's begin by finding the list of dates.
- To move to the list,
Scroll to the second page of the document
- To select the list,
Press & drag from "LEGO produces..." to "1978"
- To set a left tab-stop, on the ruler,
Click on the 5-inch mark, Click Add left tab-stop
- To deselect the text,
Click in a blank area of the document
The dates are now lined up and the data is in two columns. It is important to note that this works because the original author used tabs to separate the data. Adding the tab-stop at the 5-inch mark simply lined up the original tabs.
