Setting the Tabbing Order

Once the format and design of your form is complete, you will want to set the tabbing order for the text entry fields that have been included on your form. Setting the tabbing order will instruct Job Manager of the order in which fields should be made active when a user is navigating a form using the Tab key. The tabbing order affects only text entry fields; the Tab key cannot be used to navigate radio buttons, check boxes, popups, or file collectors.

To set the tabbing order for a form:

1. Select the Tabbing Order Tool from the Tools Palette.
2. Click on the text entry fields in the order in which they should be made active when a user is tabbing through the form. Sequential numbers will automatically appear in each text entry field on the form, displaying the current tabbing order. These numbers will update themselves automatically as you click each text entry field.

TIP: To restart numbering of the text entry fields when setting the tabbing order for the form, click a blank section of the document and start defining the tab order again by clicking on the first field you would like to define in the order, then the second, and so on... To change an existing ordering, click a blank section of the document and start defining the tab order again by clicking on the first field you would like to define in the order. If you would like to keep a portion of the tab order as it is currently defined, Shift-Click the last field with the desired order, and continue reordering the remaining fields.

3. Select Save Form from the Form menu to save the changes you have made to the form.

To switch the tabbing order of two sequentially ordered form objects:

Sometimes you will want to switch the tabbing order of two sequentially ordered form objects. To do this, follow the steps provided below.

1. Select the Tabbing Order Tool from the Tools Palette. This will reveal the tabbing order in the open form.

2. Shift + Click the field object before the two objects with sequential ordering that you want to change. For example, in the screen capture above, we want to switch the tabbing order of the form objects with a current tabbing order of 5 and 6. To do this, we would first Shift + Click the form object with tabbing order 3. This will highlight form objects 1-3.

3. Click the form object with the higher number tab order that you want to change to a lower number tab order. For example, in the screen capture above, we want to switch the tab order for the form objects currently ordered 4 and 5. To do this, we would click on the form object with tab order number 5. This will change its tab order number to 4 and change the tabbing order for the form object that was previously number 4 to number 5. As you can see in the screen capture below, the tab order has been switched for the two objects, and the tab order for form objects 6 and beyond remain unchanged.