How can it replace one character with multiple occurrence of a character (like \t)

It's no problem to replace multiple characters with one. But I did not find the answer for the opposite.

For example: I want to change

Items: item1 item2 item3 item4

to

Items:
                item1
                item2
                ...

and for the whitespace I want to use \t tabstop (for example). Something like:

%s/\s\(item.\)/\r\t{5}\1/g

does not work.

How can you replace one match with multiple instances of a character (like \t)?

It's no problem to replace multiple characters with one. But I did not find the answer for the opposite.

For example: I want to change

Items: item1 item2 item3 item4

to

Items:
                item1
                item2
                ...

and for the whitespace I want to use \t tabstop (for example). Something like:

:%s/\s\(item.\)/\r\t{5}\1/g

does not work.

How can it replace one character with multiple occurances of a character (like \t)

It's no problem to replace multiple characters with one. But I did not find the answer for the opposite.

For example: I want to change

Items: item1 item2 item3 item4

to

Items:
                item1
                item2
                ...

and for the whitespace I want to use \t tabstop (for example). Something like:

%s/\s\(item.\)/\r\t{5}\1/g

does not work.

How can it replace one character with multiple occurrence of a character (like \t)

It's no problem to replace multiple characters with one. But I did not find the answer for the opposite.

For example: I want to change

Items: item1 item2 item3 item4

to

Items:
                item1
                item2
                ...

and for the whitespace I want to use \t tabstop (for example). Something like:

%s/\s\(item.\)/\r\t{5}\1/g

does not work.

How can it replace one character with multiple occurances of a character (like \t)

It's no problem to replace multiple characters with one. But I did not find the answer for the opposite.

For example: I want to change

Items: item1 item2 item3 item4

to

Items:
                item1
                item2
                ...

and for the whitespace I want to use \t tabstop (for example). Something like:

s%/\s\(item.\)/\r\t{5}\1/g

does not work.

How can it replace one character with multiple occurances of a character (like \t)

It's no problem to replace multiple characters with one. But I did not find the answer for the opposite.

For example: I want to change

Items: item1 item2 item3 item4

to

Items:
                item1
                item2
                ...

and for the whitespace I want to use \t tabstop (for example). Something like:

%s/\s\(item.\)/\r\t{5}\1/g

does not work.