Need to limit columns to two and go from A1 to B1 "enter" A2 to B2

I need to set up a spread sheet for scanning purposes.
What I want to happen:
I scan my part number and it gets entered into cell A1, active cell moves to B1 then I scan my serial number and the active cell moves to A2 ready for the next part number and serial number. And it repeats after that. A2 → B2, A3 → B3.

Thanks for the help!

Starting in cell A1, press Tab to go to the next cell in the same row, cell B1.

Then press Enter to go to the beginning of the next row, cell A2.

I should have added, I would prefer to not have to use the keyboard at all. Is there a way to set it to only use TAB for column A and only use ENTER for column B?

I had to try a few things but finally found a way. Not smart, but it would work. You can do this with Base. I’ll add a very simple prototype. The .odb file is LO Base 6.2.3.2 and db type is HSQLDB. Field SN is the primary key. With a Laser Barcode Scanner type MK-1500 I’m able to scan barcodes endless forward that way you are looking for. At least in Windows 7, because my Scanner is not functional under Windows 10 (should, but isn’t).

Once this is done, there seems to be only one real tiny path to export a table from Base to Calc via Clipboard (found no other export option). But there is a drawback of how numbers are recognised when inserting into Calc: Right-Click the table in Base, copy, move to Calc, Right-Click cell, (don’t know exact in english) Insert contents, on fly-out again Insert contents, choose HyperText Markup. This inserts the data as text. Other options would result in number conversion and displaying them in scientific notation. From Calc you could export again into other data formats.

Maybe you have to figure out some more details until your workflow is operational. Good luck.

Auto PN SN Scan.odb

Auto PN SN Scan.ods

Can you configure your scanner to send a HT (code 09) as the delimiter? If so you can remove cell protection from the range A:B and then protect the sheet. Any HT will then move the focus to the next unprotected cell, and thus, if starting with A1 to B1 → A2 → B2 and so on… (Not having your or any scanner at hand I couldn’t test.)