How to make Eclipse use spaces instead of tabs in Java editor

I use Eclipse IDE extensively to write Java programs for testing and example purpose, but when I copy those program in any text editors e.g. VIM, Notepad, TextPad or Edit plus, the indentation goes weird. I see a lot of white spaces which makes the program wider than expected. This happens because when you copy Java program from Eclipse to a text editor, tabs are converted to spaces and different editor has the different settings of tabs. UNIX text editors prefer tab is 8 spaces, Windows text editors, and IDEs e.g. Eclipse treat tabs as 4 spaces. If you are like many Java programmer who is more comfortable with space than tabs because they give a true sense of spacing, you can always change the Java editor settings to use space instead of tabs in Eclipse. In this article, I am going to share how to make Eclipse uses spaces instead of tabs for Java editor, which you use while writing Java programs.

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