How to sort tabs by numerical order

[Dianella655]

I have a series of interactive order forms I am developing for a company and I am running into various issues with the tab order.

I am creating the forms in Indesign and using the Interactive Form tool to create a series of fillable text boxes and check boxes.

Each text field is named a number (eg 1 through 50). When I export as Interactive PDF it appears in Acrobat but the tab order is all wrong. I know I can drag and drop the individual text fields around in the text field window but that is a long and ardouos process, plus I often have to change the forms slightly in Indesign so don't want to go through that every time.

Is there a way to order the tabs by number? Maybe a script or Action?

Many thanks,

Amanda

[try67 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, no. The only way to set the tab order using a script is the same as you would do when you go to the page's properties, ie by rows, columns or "structure". However, if you do it once in Acrobat then you don't need to re-do it every time you update the file.

Just remove the fields from your InDesign file and output a static version. Then use the Replace Pages command in Acrobat to insert the new pages instead of the old ones. The fields (and their settings, like tab order) will remain in tact.