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Smart Paste / Form Fill doesn't work on tabs that are hidden by default

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Posted on by BP-16050313-0

I am currently experiencing an issue where the Smart Paste / Form Fill capability is not working on form tabs that are hidden by default.

I expect that the Form Fill feature is parsing the form on load looking for viable fields that it can populate when Form Fill is used. As the tab is hidden on load the fields aren't being registered by the Form Fill and so not offering to fill tab fields when the tab is displayed. Is anyone else experiencing this problem and resolved it?

Given Microsoft offers guidance on hiding tabs not required on initial load to improve performance and prevent visual artifact appearing and disappearing on form load, it would be nice if Microsoft could offer some guidance where their recommendation breaks the Form Fill feature or change Form Fill to accommodate for this scenario.

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Michael E. Gernaey 53,369 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @BP-16050313-0

It would be better to share some pictures and the flow of execution.

I cannot tell if you have a question or you are just venting, which is ok of course but if you want help, need to photos, with the flow of where you have code bla bla

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BP-16050313-0 6 on at

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Hi @Michael E. Gernaey, for some reason I can't reply directly to your post.

Definitely not venting - apologies if it came across that way. Just trying to ascertain if anyone else who is experiencing this problem has managed to find a work around?

Not sure screenshots will help but what I am referring to is the case where I have a form that contains a number of tabs that are hidden by default, in this case see the 3 "detail" tabs below eg:

On form load we have some code that determines which of the 3 detail tabs should be made visible. The Form Fill problem arises because it is not aware of the fields on any of the details tabs because they are not initially visible, which is understandable.

But when we programmatically make one of the details tabs visible, the new fields now available on the details tab cannot be populated by a Form Fill operation. Form Fill doesn't recognise the screen has changed and there doesn't seem to be a method to make it update to recognise the new fields.

I also wanted to highlight this, so that if Microsoft is listening 🙂, they may need to change the Form Fill implementation to handle a dynamic form where fields can be made visible or hidden post the initial form load event. Also wanted to highlight that the current Form Fill behaviour does not align with Microsoft recommendation of hiding tabs for performance and UI experience reasons - as such they may need to adjust their messaging/implementation on one or the other.

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