After examining the default tabbing
order, you may decide that you need a different sequence for some
of the objects on the form. For example, if you have two groups
of address fields situated side-by-side, you may want to tab through the
fields in the first group before moving to the second group.
You change the position of an object in the tabbing order by
moving the object up or down in the Tab Order palette list. You
can move a single object or a group of objects. When you move the
object to a new place in the order, Designer reassigns the numbers
to accommodate the object in its new place.
For example, you have four objects on the page, which are arranged
in the following layout.
Therefore, their default tabbing order will be as shown in this
illustration.
You may want to change this tabbing order to a more logical one,
such as First Name, Last Name, Telephone, Email. All you have to
do is move the LastName object one position up in the list. The
tabbing order numbers are reassigned to reflect this move.
Although
the tabbing order for the objects on the master page and the objects
inside a fragment are displayed on the form, you cannot change the
order for these objects on the Design View tab. For the master page
objects, click the Master Pages tab and customize the tabbing order.
(See
Changing the tabbing order on master pages
). For the fragments, open
the required fragment and change the order inside the fragment.
(See
To change the tabbing order in fragments
).
If your form has more than one page, the tabbing order for each
page starts at the number 1, and you can change the order only inside
each page.
Before you change the tabbing order, you should prepare your
working area in the following way:
-
Select
Window > Tab Order. The Tab Order palette appears on the left
side of the working area.
-
Click Show Order and then select Custom.
The tabbing
order numbers displayed on the form are now inside blue squares
. This square visually indicates
that you are now in custom tabbing mode and can change the position
of one or more objects in the tabbing sequence.
