diff --git a/app/src/processing/app/Base.java b/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
index a28d29fa9..9b3fa03f8 100644
--- a/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
+++ b/app/src/processing/app/Base.java
@@ -764,7 +764,20 @@ public class Base {
     if (!newbieFile.createNewFile()) {
       throw new IOException();
     }
-    FileUtils.copyFile(new File(getContentFile("examples"), "01.Basics" + File.separator + "BareMinimum" + File.separator + "BareMinimum.ino"), newbieFile);
+
+    // Initialize the pde file with the BareMinimum sketch.
+    // Apply user-defined tab settings.
+    String sketch = FileUtils.readFileToString(
+        new File(getContentFile("examples"), "01.Basics" + File.separator
+            + "BareMinimum" + File.separator + "BareMinimum.ino"));
+    String currentTab = "  ";
+    String newTab = (PreferencesData.getBoolean("editor.tabs.expand")
+        ? StringUtils.repeat(" ",
+            PreferencesData.getInteger("editor.tabs.size"))
+        : "\t");
+    sketch = sketch.replaceAll(
+        "(?<=(^|\n)(" + currentTab + "){0,50})" + currentTab, newTab);
+    FileUtils.writeStringToFile(newbieFile, sketch);
     return newbieFile;
   }
 
diff --git a/arduino-core/src/processing/app/helpers/FileUtils.java b/arduino-core/src/processing/app/helpers/FileUtils.java
index 9694a2f5b..f2a1603b6 100644
--- a/arduino-core/src/processing/app/helpers/FileUtils.java
+++ b/arduino-core/src/processing/app/helpers/FileUtils.java
@@ -8,6 +8,9 @@ import java.io.FileInputStream;
 import java.io.FileOutputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStreamReader;
+import java.io.OutputStream;
+import java.nio.charset.Charset;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
 import java.nio.file.Files;
 import java.nio.file.Paths;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
@@ -146,6 +149,34 @@ public class FileUtils {
     }
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Writes the given data to the given file, creating the file if it does not exist.
+   * This method is equivalent to calling {@code writeStringToFile(file, data, StandardCharsets.UTF_8)}.
+   * @param file - The file to write to.
+   * @param data - The string to write.
+   * @throws IOException If an I/O error occurs.
+   */
+  public static void writeStringToFile(File file, String data) throws IOException {
+    writeStringToFile(file, data, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Writes the given data to the given file, creating the file if it does not exist.
+   * @param file - The file to write to.
+   * @param data - The string to write.
+   * @param charset - The charset used to convert the string to bytes.
+   * @throws IOException If an I/O error occurs.
+   */
+  public static void writeStringToFile(File file, String data, Charset charset) throws IOException {
+    OutputStream out = null;
+    try {
+      out = new FileOutputStream(file);
+      out.write(data.getBytes(charset));
+    } finally {
+      IOUtils.closeQuietly(out);
+    }
+  }
+
   /**
    * Returns true if the given file has any of the given extensions.
    *