Drake Tax – Organizers – Custom Pages

Last Updated: November 02, 2026

Editor

To access the Organizer Editor, begin by creating a client Organizer through Last Year Data > Organizers. In the Organizer Options window, select Custom Editor from the bottom of the screen to open the Custom Editor window.

To edit the checklist or questionnaire page, select Open and then select the organizer page you would like to edit. The Custom Editor has a toolbar across the top of the window and several panes below. The large Document pane in the center (the Checklist pane or Questionnaire pane) lists the items that appear in the document. Click the arrow to the left of a category or item to show forms and other items nested underneath.

On the left are the Available Items, History, and Deleted Items panes. On the right are the How to Use and Selected Item Details panes. When you select an item in the Document pane, customization instructions appear in How to Use, and the item appears in Selected Item Details for editing.

Items you can add from Available Items include:

• Standard items — Drake Software–provided items that you can add or remove as needed.
• Custom items — items you create for specific checklist or questionnaire needs.

Editing items

Text items and group items are fully editable. In the Selected Item Details pane (lower-right), you can change text, print it in bold, and choose whether it is preceded by a blank line. Most standard checkbox items cannot be edited; you can always edit custom checkbox items.

To edit or add text for a selected item, click anywhere in the Selected Item Details pane and type. Press Delete or Backspace to remove text, and press Tab to save the changes. Mark or clear the Bold and Add Preceding Blank Line check boxes as needed. You can also click Save on the toolbar to save your work periodically.

Adding items

To add an item, drag it from the Available Items pane to the desired location in the Checklist pane (or Questionnaire pane, if you are customizing a questionnaire).

As you drag the item through the list, a blue positioning arrow shows whether the item will be placed above or below another item. An arrow pointing to the right means the dragged item will become a checkbox item nested under a group heading.

After the item is positioned, you can edit it in the Selected Item Details pane. To remove an item from the Checklist or Questionnaire pane, drag it to the Deleted Items pane, or highlight the item and click Remove Item on the toolbar. Click Preview on the toolbar to see how your changes look on the checklist or questionnaire.

History

When you update the document’s prior-year settings, empty the trash, or restore default settings, the version of the document in the Document pane is saved in the History pane. Drag a version from History back into the Document pane to edit it. To discard saved versions you no longer need, drag them to the Deleted Items pane and click Empty Trash.

Saved versions in the History pane behave like items. When you drag a version back into the Document pane, the current checklist is not overwritten; the version is placed into the existing checklist as a “sub-checklist.”

To restore an old version, click Clear to delete everything in the Document pane, then drag in the version you want to restore. Select the Clear Backup header and click Remove Item. A recently deleted checklist also appears in History if you need to revert a change.

Toolbar

Icons on the toolbar include Open, Save, Restore Defaults, Remove Item, Clear, Empty Trash, Preview, Print Blank, Import, Program Help, and Exit.

Although the program automatically saves your work when you exit, you can safeguard against sudden crashes by saving periodically. Click Save.

Restore the checklist to its original state (as shipped) by clicking Restore Defaults.

Use Remove Item to remove a group heading while leaving any check boxes nested underneath. Highlight a group item and click Remove Item. Nested check boxes can also be removed individually by highlighting one and clicking Remove Item. The Clear tool removes everything within the Document pane and allows you to build a checklist from scratch.

Items in the Deleted Items pane can be dragged back into the checklist, or they can be deleted permanently by clicking Empty Trash.

To see how your current checklist will look when printed, click Preview. The Preview window is updated in real time and reflects all changes made to the checklist. Make edits as needed; when you are satisfied with the format, click Print Blank. To reuse or edit checklists from prior years, import them directly into the Custom Editor using Import.

Finish and include the questionnaire

When you finish editing, click Save, then Exit to leave the Custom Editor.

After a custom questionnaire has been edited and saved, you can include it with the client’s documents from the Form Options menu at the bottom of the Organizer Options window. In the Form Properties Editor, check the box next to the questionnaire option to include that form in the printed set. When finished, continue by clicking Process 1040.