Set 4 Space Indent in Emacs in Text Mode

Question

I\'ve been unsuccessful in getting Emacs to switch from 8 space tabs to 4 space tabs when pressing the TAB in buffers with the major mode text-mode.

Answer 1

This is the only solution that keeps a tab from ever getting inserted for me, without a sequence or conversion of tabs to spaces. Both of those seemed adequate, but wasteful:

(setq-default
    indent-tabs-mode nil
    tab-width 4
    tab-stop-list (quote (4 8))
)

Note that quote needs two numbers to work (but not more!).

Also, in most major modes (Python for instance), indentation is automatic in Emacs. If you need to indent outside of the auto indent, use:

M-i