Field Tab Order in Design View

[croy]

Access (2002, at least) seems to remember the order in which
fields are created in a report, and when tab-keying to
navigate, follows that order much the same way as forms in
form view.

By the time I get a report nearly finished, I've moved,
copied, deleted, and otherwise completely scrambled the
fields, as far as their order of creation, and then using
the tab key to navigate is a real pain.

Unlike forms, I don't see any tab-order setting for reports.

Is there a way to "fix" this, reasonably easily?

 

[Marshall Barton]

Access (2002, at least) seems to remember the order in which
fields are created in a report, and when tab-keying to
navigate, follows that order much the same way as forms in
form view.

By the time I get a report nearly finished, I've moved,
copied, deleted, and otherwise completely scrambled the
fields, as far as their order of creation, and then using
the tab key to navigate is a real pain.

Unlike forms, I don't see any tab-order setting for reports.

Is there a way to "fix" this, reasonably easily?

You're talking about tabbing through controls in design
view, because there is no tabbing when previewing a report.
Therefore there is no Tab Order property for controls on a
report. (note: the Tab Order is not used when a form is in
design view)

Instead of trying to lacate a control by using the Ta key,
try selecting the desired control form the drop list in the
form design toolbar.

 

[jimojimo]

You're talking about tabbing through controls in design
view, because there is no tabbing when previewing a report.
Therefore there is no Tab Order property for controls on a
report.  (note: the Tab Order is not used when a form is in
design view)

Instead of trying to lacate a control by using the Ta key,
try selecting the desired control form the drop list in the
form design toolbar.

Marsh,
The tab order isn't just used to locate a field in design view. The
tab order in reports *seems* to (I've not fully verified this--but a
couple examples had this effect) affect the OutputTo action--ie when a
report is output to, say Excel, it seems to locaate the Report feild
in the Excel columns (A,B,C, etc) based on the design-view tab order.
This is a problem. Do you know of a way to fix it...assuming that
nobody is perfect and will plop fields on a report in precisely the
right position the first time every time.
Thanks,
--Jim

 

[Marshall Barton]

The tab order isn't just used to locate a field in design view. The
tab order in reports *seems* to (I've not fully verified this--but a
couple examples had this effect) affect the OutputTo action--ie when a
report is output to, say Excel, it seems to locaate the Report feild
in the Excel columns (A,B,C, etc) based on the design-view tab order.
This is a problem. Do you know of a way to fix it...assuming that
nobody is perfect and will plop fields on a report in precisely the
right position the first time every time.

The term "tab order" really does not apply here and using it
tends to cloud the issue.

There are some processes that operate on controls in the
order they appear in the Controls collection and
ocassionally that makes a difference. (As you've noticed,
the order is at least partially determined by the order the
controls are created.) If you are trying to do something
that depends on this order, you need to find another way to
accomplish it.

In the case of exporting a report to Excel, there are so
many issues/problems that the capability was removed in
A2007. So even if you were able to rearrange the Controls
collection, you would still have to find a different
approach when you eventually upgrade.

The "right" way to export data is to export a query. For
reports, the query is most likely the report's record source
query (probably with the addition of an Order By clause).