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A right-pointing arrow meeting a vertical bar, marking the tab key.
Also known as: Tabulator key, Arrow to bar, Indent key
The tab symbol marks the key that advances to the next stop. The name is short for 'tabulator': the key was invented to line up columns of figures in tables.
Marks the tab key, which advances the cursor to the next tab stop or moves focus to the next field.
Contexts: Software
Is the primary means of moving through a form or interface without a mouse, which makes it central to keyboard accessibility.
Contexts: Software
Is short for 'tabulator', the mechanism added to typewriters for aligning columns of figures in tables.
Typewriter era onward · Contexts: Software
Is drawn as an arrow running into a bar, and the direction is the whole message: pointing right it advances to the next stop, pointing left it goes back. Many keycaps print both, one above the other, because the key does the second job when Shift is held.
Contexts: Software
Related forms that are not treated as separate canonical symbols — see our variant rules.
Back-tab form
The arrow pointing left into a bar, encoded as U+21E4. Reached by holding Shift on a keyboard that prints only the forward arrow.
A rightward arrow whose head meets a short vertical bar standing at its tip.
Both draw an arrow arrested against an upright bar; the tab key's carries a second bar at its tail.