Text Edit Format

I'm not a Text Edit guru, so there may be an easier way to do this, but I'll tell you what I know.

If you look at the top above your ruler, you likely see a bunch of right-facing triangles every half-inch from 0-7 inches, and then nothing after that. These are your tab stops, and that's why it only tabs that far before moving to the next line.

In the extreme upper right corner of your window you should see an oval with four types of tab icons in it. You can drag them onto the ruler wherever you want in order to set custom tab stops, so you can just keep creating new right-facing ones every half-inch along the width of your document. (To remove tab stops, just drag them away from the ruler.) It's awkward and time-consuming, but it should work.