Yes, vim settings can be included within the document.
They are mostly found within comments, so they don’t mess up the original file. An example for tab-specific settings is:
/* ex: set tabstop=8 expandtab: */
Note that this command works in most cases, however, servers are often setup without modeline turned on for security reasons. To turn on that feature add the following in your $HOME/.vimrc or the system $VIM/vimrc:
set modeline