Organizing Tab Order of Form Fields

[RbbrBootz]

As per this post, I am trying to do the same, but have over 300 fields per page, and Acrobat does not organize them in any logical order.  I've used the create multiple copies function a few times, and it has decided to randomly organize them as per the attached pic.  I REALLY don't want to have to manually go through the list as it will only take one field at a time.  Is there a way to pull a section together easily and then grab it as a whole and move it into the order of the overall sheet?

[JR Boulay]

A picture is worth a thousand words.

😉

[RbbrBootz]

I obviously didn't post a big enough picture.  See my reply to the main post.

[jane-e]

“Acrobat does not organize them in any logical order.”

Hi

JR_Boulay’s reply will help you to fix what you have.

In addition, what I have seen in my experience with forms is that there is a logical order.

The first field created is #1, the second is #2, etc. Moving a field to a new position does not change its hierarchy, so that’s where setting Tab Order is essential. If you want to experiment with this, try having “Show Tab Numbers” on the next time you create a form and you’ll see how it works.

What I see in your image is that the five fields in the first row were created early, then each was copied eleven times (that we can see). Most likely, each was copied once, then the original and its copy were multiple-copied together. You can see that the first Skill Name is #4 and the others are #169–179, for instance, and the pattern repeats for the other fields.

So there’s the logic, but use Tab Order to fix it! 😊

~ Jane

[RbbrBootz]

I obviously didn't post a big enough picture.  See my reply to the main post.

[RbbrBootz]

[RbbrBootz]

So as you can see, 4,9, and 13 should not be under the Skills list but significantly higher up on the page.  You can also see that, after I redid one of the tables to use Create Multiple Copies in the Qualities are, it jumped from 80 to 340+.  I have been working with Adobe forms now for a few years.  I was obviously tired and made too many assumptions.

[jane-e]

When you redid one of the tables, they took the next numbers that were available. They are in the order in which they were created — not where they are sitting now.

Try this: in a new form, create four fields. Look at the numbers. Rearrange them. Look at the numbers again. Create multiples of the first field you created. Look at the numbers again.

If row and column order don’t work, you may need to do manual tab order and click on each field in turn.

~ Jane

[RbbrBootz]

That's a LOT of work, to recreate AND a lot of work to manually re-order... I'm not sure which one will be longer.  SIGH.  As I had asked, I was really hoping for some way to automate it.

[RbbrBootz]

You gave me an idea...

Pull all the sections out onto separate pages, and organize each and re-insert them in the necessary order!

Thank you, that just might work!

[jane-e]

As I was waking up, I wondered if cut and paste would help? I haven’t tried it, but organize the first section, cut and paste, then the second, then the third? Try it in a small document first.

~ Jane

[RbbrBootz]

I basically cut each sections fields and pasted them into their own page.  I set it to horizontal tabbing as each section was predominantly so individually.  I then set the tab order to manually.  For those with two subsections, like the Skills, I brought in each subsection, one at a time, in the order I wanted the tabbing to work, and voila!  Everything is in the order I need for the first page.  I'll have to extract the second page and do the same and bring it back in to have everything as it should be.

Thank you Jane-e.  BTW...do you know how to change your display name?  I've gone through the help files and it all leads to it's broken and Adobe isn't fixing it.  I'd rather have my Adobe account screen name instead of my email addy.

Thanks a bunch!!!!

[jane-e]

You’re welcome, Oliver — I’m so glad this is working on this very complex form. Thank you for the larger sample so we could see that neither rows nor columns would work.

As to changing your display name, right now that’s a bug with the new forum interface. I just looked at the list of things that are being fixed. It’s number 5 on the list, and the status is “in progress” — so Adobe is aware of it and is working on it. I reported your name issue in the back area so it won’t get lost.

~ Jane