Okay, not exactly sure of your workflow, but if your library display is on a big screen, and has your preferred fields displayed, you can move down from record to record and the focus remains the same field on the reference tab… You are just limited by the amount of information you can view, especially for abstract, obviously. I just checked and unfortunately switching between preview and reference tab, loses the focus on that field when you move to a new record. – but not if you are on the reference tab when you move to the next record… If the field you are filling in, is empty in those records you care about, it can be a library display field you can sort on, so the empty fields are at the top.
well, Just trying to figure out what could work for you…