Notepad++ – Change Background Color for Tabs

notepad

I want to give all tabs in my document a nice background color, as possible in Vim. How could I do that in Notepad++?

To make sure I'm clear, by "tabs" I mean to tabulation-based indents, to indent text (those you add hitting the "Tab" key).

The advantage is making it easier to distinguish tab indents from space indents (this is extremely helpful when working cross platform).

Best Answer

I am not sure whether it is possible (most probably not possible) to add a background color for the tabs in Notepad++. But somehow it is possible to highlight the tabs in other way which might be helpful too.

From the Menu Bar of Notepad++, go to View -> Show Symbol and enable the option Show White Space and TAB. It will show output like this:

As you can see here, the arrow signs indicating the tab and the dot signs indicating the spaces. Obviously the arrow signs for tabs and dot signs for spaces are for viewing in Notepad++ only but they are not actually present, so you can normally copy the texts in any other place where the arrow sign and dot sign will not be there.

To change the color of the arrow sign/dot sign go to Settings -> style Configurator and in Language section select Global Styles & in Style section select White space symbol and change the Foreground Color as your wish.

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