HOWTO: Insert TAB Characters in RichTextBox Control in VB
ID: Q143273
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The information in this article applies to:
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Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0
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Microsoft Visual Basic Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0
SUMMARY
The RichTextBox control allows you to create RTF documents from within your
Visual Basic program. If you press the TAB key while a RichTextBox control
has the focus, the focus is moved to the next control in the tab order
rather than inserting a tab character into the RichTextBox control. This
article explains how you can insert the TAB character into the RichTextBox
control itself.
MORE INFORMATION
At run-time, a user must press CTRL+TAB to insert a TAB character in a
RichTextBox control. However, most people are accustomed to just simply
pressing the TAB key. Whenever the TAB key is pressed from within a
RichTextBox control, the focus is immediately set to the next control on
the form.
In the demonstration program below, we change the TabStop property of all
controls on the form to False. While the RichTextBox control has the focus,
the TAB key is prevented from setting the focus to another control. This is
because the TabStop property is set to False. Therefore, the TAB control
character is correctly inserted into the text of the RichTextBox control.
How to Create the Demonstration Program
The demonstration program below shows how to insert a TAB control character
in the RichTextBox control provided in Visual Basic.
- Create a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
- Add a RichTextBox control to Form1.
- Add the following code to Form1:
Dim arrTabStop() As Boolean
Private Sub RichTextBox1_GotFocus()
'Store the TabStop property for each control on the
'form and then set the TabStop property of each
'control to False
ReDim arrTabStop(0 To Controls.Count - 1) As Boolean
For i = 0 To Controls.Count - 1
arrTabStop(i) = Controls(i).TabStop
Controls(i).TabStop = False
Next
End Sub
Private Sub RichTextBox1_LostFocus()
'Restore the Tabstop property for each control on the form
For i = 0 To Controls.Count - 1
Controls(i).TabStop = arrTabStop(i)
Next
End Sub
- Add two Command Buttons control to Form1.
Execute the demonstration program by pressing the F5 function key. The
focus is set to the RichTextBox control. Type some text into the
RichTextBox control. Whenever desired, you can press the TAB key to insert
that control character into the text you are typing. Notice that pressing
TAB does not move the focus to the Command Button control; you must click
the mouse pointer on the command button itself to move the focus to it.
Additional query words:
kbVBp400 kbVBp500 kbVBp600 kbVBp kbdsd kbDSupport kbControl
Keywords : kbGrpVB
Version :
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto