Keyboard

Tab key

tab

The tab key is sometimes marked with an arrow-to-line symbol:

The tab (tabulate) key is commonly used in three different ways, depending on context:

  • to jump to the next column (for lining up tabular data)
  • to jump to the next position in a form
  • to autocomplete the current word (e.g., command or filename)

Normal computer users probably don’t use the tab key very much. But if you’re working on the command line, you should use it a lot: see tab completion.