How to Change Tabbing Order in Excel (4 Easy Methods)

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Tabbing Order.xlsm

4 Easy Methods to Change Tabbing Order in Excel

We have created a simple and concise user form. It has 4 text boxes namely Customer ID, First Name, Last Name, and Email. We will see show how to navigate between these text boxes by setting a custom tab order.

excel tabbing order

Method 1 – Changing the Tabbing Order from View Tab in VBA Window

Steps:

In the VBA window, click on View.
Select Tab Order.

view tab to change tabbing order in excel

This will open the Tab Order window where you will see all the text boxes.
Click on the Move Up or Move Down buttons to set the tabbing order.
Click OK once you are done.

Method 2 – Set the Tabbing Order from the UserForm

Steps:

Right-click on the UserForm that you are currently working with.
Select Tab Order.
You should see the Tab Order window as previously and can change the order from there.

right click on user form to change tabbing order in excel

Method 3 – Manually Inserting a TabIndex

Steps:

Click on any of the text boxes.
Navigate to the Properties window and click on TabIndex.
Enter the TabIndex of the first text box as 0.
Enter 1 for the next text box in the sequence, 2 for the next one, and so on.
This will set the tab order for the text boxes.

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Method 4 – Using Ctrl and Left Mouse Button

Steps:

Press and hold Ctrl, then click on the text boxes in the order that you want to tab.

shortcut to change tabbing order in excel

Go to the Properties window and type 0 in TabIndex.
This should set the tab order that you selected.

How to Set a Tab Order in Protected Excel Sheet

Steps:

Right-click on the tab of the protected sheet and click on View Code.

change tabbing order in protected sheet in excel

Insert the following code in the new VBA window with the name of the sheet.
When you insert data in the selected cells and press the tab key, this will follow the cell sequence that you set in the code.

Private Sub Set_Order_Protected_Sheet(ByVal trgt As Range)
    Dim tabArr As Variant
    Dim n As Long
    tabArr = Array("B5", "C6", "D7", "E8")
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    For n = LBound(tabArr) To UBound(tabArr)
        If tabArr(n) = trgt.Address(0, 0) Then
            If n = UBound(tabArr) Then
                Me.Range(tabArr(LBound(tabArr))).Select
            Else
                Me.Range(tabArr(n + 1)).Select
            End If
        End If
    Next n
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub