I've tried asking this question in other forums but either got no
response, or the one responder I did have couldn't provide an answer.
Maybe I've been asking the question the wrong way. Let's try this:

A requester sent several Excel files that have been formatted to print
out as forms. These forms should be filled out electronically by
service technicians in the field, then printed and signed by
customers.

The reason the forms are in Excel is that all service techs already
have and use Excel.

The forms do not need to fill in any worksheet ranges or databases.
All they need to do is provide clickable checkboxes, radio buttons,
and fields for entering comments, customer information and dates.

The service tech needs to be able to tab from field to field. Not
every field will need to be filled out each time the form is used.

Problems:
Because the forms do not use worksheet ranges or database, I chose to
create fields from the Control toolbox.

But I don't know how to set a tab order for these fields. I also don't
know what other types of actions are usually coded for the types of
fields I need, let alone where to find code I can use.

I imagine I should set a background shade when a textbox or checkbox
field is in focus, but how?
What considerations do checkboxes require?
How are radio buttons handled?
How can I control where the focus goes next when the user hits Tab?

I've spent almost two weeks trying to research this online. Microsoft
help pages are severely lacking in this level of detail. It took three
or four days just to discover that the Control toolbox creates ActiveX
controls.

Learning that finally enabled me to understand that I need to use VBA
to work with these fields---so I tried to sit down with the VBA help
files and start learning how to code them, but I just don't have time
to sift through it all.

Please help, if you can!! I'm desperate -- this project is several
days overdue now, and I have to get it done so I can move on. (It has
not helped at all that the Microsoft newsgroups have had connection
problems, "service temporarily unavailable", making my searches even
less fruitful and slower than they might have otherwise been.)