How to change indentation in text-mode for emacs

Question

I'm in text mode and want my tab key to indent a line to two spaces.

The file looks like this:

Line one

Line two

The cursor is situated before the 'L' : "Line two", and I hit TAB and it gets indented 6 spaces as opposed to the desired 2 spaces.

Actions I've tried:

1. I've tried updating the variable: tab-stop-list

   (setq tab-stop-list '(2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16))
   

2. I've tried adding a text-mode-hook

   (add-hook 'text-mode-hook
     '(lambda ()
       (setq tab-width 2)))
   

Answer 1

Try setting

(setq standard-indent 2)

In your .emacs

Answer 2

The default for in text-mode will indent to the first non-whitespace character in the line above it.

From the key binding documentation in text mode

TAB (translated from ) runs the command indent-for-tab-command, which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `indent.el'.

It is bound to TAB.

(indent-for-tab-command &optional ARG)

Indent line or region in proper way for current major mode or insert a tab. Depending on `tab-always-indent', either insert a tab or indent.

In most major modes, if point was in the current line's indentation, it is moved to the first non-whitespace character after indenting; otherwise it stays at the same position in the text....

Luckily, this can be changed. Adding the following to your text-mode-hook should do what you need:

(setq tab-width 2)
(setq indent-line-function (quote insert-tab))

Answer 3

Add this to your .emacs :

(add-hook 'text-mode-hook
          '(lambda ()
             (setq indent-tabs-mode nil)
             (setq tab-width 2)
             (setq indent-line-function (quote insert-tab))))

See Emacs Indentation Tutorial.