Acrobat XI form editing - cannot drag a form field to edit tab order

[patriciab86974420]

I am working in Acrobat XI. I'm up to about 70 fields and have plenty to go.

Suddenly I cannot drag a field to change its order in the field pane. I click, hold and drag, and can see the little dotted line move, but when I unclick the field remains stuck. All of the fields appear to be locked against dragging.

I could find nothing in the discussions on this problem and would appreciate any help. Thank you.

EDIT: I should add - I do have "sort manually" checked under the Tab Order dropdown.

[gkaiseril]

Have you set the field's lock property to on?

[patriciab86974420]

No, unlocked - but thank you for responding.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

But even when the field is locked in Properties, it can still be dragged/dropped into the tab order.

I haven't run into the problem before and I do a lot of forms, but it's also been a few years since I used Acrobat XI and many features have been changed or improved

It appears you've taken the right steps, such as selecting the option to sort the fields manually. Does this happen to all the fields in the list? Or just one or some fields?

Do you have the ability to upgrade to Acrobat DC:2018, the latest version? It provides a few more options in controlling fields. You could download the free trial to see if it resolves the problem and then purchase it if it does.

Of course, work on a copy of your original file before moving it into a newer version of Acrobat.

[patriciab86974420]

Thank you Bevi - I will ask our IT manager if we are on the latest version.

I think I may have solved the problem. While in form editing, I tried selecting Order Tabs Unspecified from the Tab Order dropdown. All the fields kind of hiccupped --- and suddenly I had the freedom to drag fields at will again. Oddly enough when I looked back under the Tab Order later on, it had reset itself to Order Tabs Manually.

I won't mark this solved yet just in case something else happens on this topic. Thanks again!

[dblade]

I had the same problem and I used your solution (selecting Orders Tabs Unspecified) and it worked for me. It appears to be a glitch but it's a glitch that works.

[Debbie Morris]

I had this happen as well, even though I've never had any similar problems in working with 100+ forms in the last few years. Your solution worked for me, too. Thanks!

[Sherrie5D11]

When creating my form this week, I had no problems being able to drag the fields to the order I wanted. 

Today all of a sudden I ran into the same issue.  I used the workaround above and it worked.  

How odd that I didn't have the issue all week, but all of a sudden now I do.

Thanks for the help!

[timstuffiowa2]

Excellent solution. This only  happens once in a while and I always forget the solution until I come back here. Thanks for the great solution. IT WORKS!

[twilly910]

I am having this trouble now, one page I can reorder, the 2nd page I cannot. Where do I fond the "Order Tabs Unspecified" option?

[Courtney29167691gldj]

I have this issue as well and I found that if I click on the lower left corner of the field, I can move it. If this is a new feature, it's very annoying and inconvenient.

[chandlerp56509664]

I just had the same issue, I unistalled Acrobat and reinstalled and it worked perfect.