diff --git a/src/plugins/texteditor/plaintexteditor.cpp b/src/plugins/texteditor/plaintexteditor.cpp
index 6b2ef7097b9..afea6e7a2cf 100644
--- a/src/plugins/texteditor/plaintexteditor.cpp
+++ b/src/plugins/texteditor/plaintexteditor.cpp
@@ -133,6 +133,7 @@ void PlainTextEditorWidget::configure(const QString &mimeType)
 void PlainTextEditorWidget::configure(const MimeType &mimeType)
 {
     Highlighter *highlighter = new Highlighter();
+    highlighter->setTabSettings(baseTextDocument()->tabSettings());
     baseTextDocument()->setSyntaxHighlighter(highlighter);
 
     setCodeFoldingSupported(false);