Web Form Tab Order

[Guest]

Hi Adobe Community,

I'm trying to publish a webform. I spent quite a while manuarlly reordering the tab order in Acrobat. However, when I upload to a web form, all of the tab orders have been reset to default values. Is there a known way to resolve this? If so, please share. Thanks, in advance!

[try67]

What do you mean by "web form", exactly? Is it still a PDF file, only shown inside a browser, or is it converted to another format? If the former, what app/plugin is used to view the file? If the latter, what format?

[Guest]

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. By webform, I mean the web form option offered by Adobe Sign, which is included in my Acrobat Pro subscription. I created an Adobe Sign template from my uploaded PDF created in Acrobat. Unfortunately, calculated fields do not convert so I had to write new formulas to fit within the restrictions of Adobe Sign calculated fields. All components were created within Adobe products, so my thinking was that tab order should be preserved from what was set in Acrobat. 

[Meenakshi Negi]

Hi GRANTLY,

Thank you for reaching out.

Please let us know how the form was created. Could you please share the sample PDF form, which resets the fields when uploading the form to Acrobat Sign?

It would be helpful if you could share the screen recording of how the tab order appears before and after uploading the document. It will help us understand the workflow and to provide correct information.  

Thanks,

Meenakshi

[Jacob Stoltz Graphic Art]

I am having this same problem. Created a PDF form in InDesign, exported as Interactive PDF, manually set tab order in Acrobat Pro, and it works fine in Acrobat. But once I select E-Sign>Create a Web Form, go through that process, and open the form in a browser (tried Chrome and Edge), then the tab order defaults back to left-to-right by row. 

[Guest]

I have not been able to find a fix or workaround for this issue. I've found some other threads dating back to 2018. It is apparently a known issue that has gone unresolved by Adobe. 

[SI_MSD7]

Still an issue as of March 18, 2025! Manually setting the desired tab order in Acrobat is painful enough only to have it default to left-to-right as a web form and no way of changing it. This REALLY needs to be fixed.

[Meenakshi Negi]

Hi SI_MSD7,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry about the trouble caused.

This is the designed behavior. Acrobat Sign handles the form differently. It detects only the form fields, not the order in which they are added. 

Please share your suggestion with the team via the following page: https://adobe.ly/4nU7fZu. 

Thanks,

Meenakshi