PerfectTablePlan Changelog

What's new in PerfectTablePlan 7.0.0

May 6, 2024

You no longer need to have Excel installed to be able to import Excel XLSX and XLS files.
Import from Excel is now faster.
PerfectTablePlan v7 is now installed over previous PerfectTablePlan v7 installs, rather than creating a new folder in ‘Program files’ each time.
We no longer support Windows 7 and 8. Windows 10 versions not updated since Oct-2018 are also not supported. PerfectTablePlan v7 might still work on these platforms, but it might not. If you have a PC with one of these OSs, we recommend you download the free trial of v7 and try it before purchasing an upgrade.

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.2.3 (Mar 22, 2023)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.2.2 (Jan 25, 2023)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.2.1 (Jan 2, 2023)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.2.0 (Oct 5, 2021)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.1.3 (Aug 26, 2021)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.1.1 (Oct 5, 2020)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.1.0 (Jul 27, 2020)

All editions:
Windows and Mac:
You can now draw spacing guides around seats. The guide is centred on the approximate position of a guest's nose and mouth, to help you with social distancing for COVID-19.
You can draw lines between any two members of different groups that are less than the required minimum social distancing.
Rows of seats can now be curved. Set Curved to greater than 0 to curve the seats. The maximum curvature is 180 degrees.
If you set Ignore first to a value greater than 0 on import, then the last ignored row is used to set column names. This is for guidance only and does not effect the import.
You can now set the RSVP status of selected guests to 'unset' with Ctrl+ (Windows)/Cmd+ (Mac).
Some issues related to Detailed (guests) and Detailed (summary) reports of Meal and Special fields have been fixed in the Report pane.
If you press the Menu key the pop-up menu now appears at the position of the selected object. Previously it appeared at the cursor position.
Previously the group name was not always updated correctly in the Groups pane. This is now fixed. Thank you to Peter T. for reporting this.
Previously semi-circular tables were not always correctly drawn. This is now fixed.
A new Table shapes section has been added to the Reference section of the documentation. It contains illustrations of the parameters used for various table shapes.
Windows only:
Fixed an issue where the busy cursor could stay on after start-up until the mouse is moved.
Advanced and Professional editions:
Windows and Mac:
All issues encountered during importing custom fields, proximity and seating are now shown. Previously a maximum of 5 were shown in the window.
PerfectTablePlan will now try to guess the name of a new custom field added during import from the column header.
In the Import Data window, if a column with blank cells is imported as a custom field of type Selection, then the default value will be set to Undefined.
In the Import Data window, if a column containing comma values is imported as a custom field of type Selection, then the commas are removed. This avoids issues with the list of allowed values, which is comma separated.
Previously importing a column as a custom field of type Selection with > 30 characters could cause issues. This is now fixed.
Changes to the names of custom fields are now updated in the Import Data window.
Previously the guest right-click menu was not updated if you added a new allowed value to a custom field of type selection through the Guest Properties window. This is now fixed. Thank you to Peter T. for reporting this.
Some issues related to Detailed (guests) and Detailed (summary) reports of custom fields of type Tags have been fixed in the Report pane.

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.0.6 (Aug 2, 2019)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.0.5 (May 27, 2019)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.0.2 (Feb 20, 2019)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.2.3 (Sep 9, 2015)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.2.2 (Mar 3, 2015)

Enhancements:
Additional layouts Name only (extended radial) and Name only (extended banquet) have been added. This allow additional space for guest names. It is appropriate to use these when you have a single table (e.g. an E-shaped table) or widely spaced banquet tables and some guests have long names/titles (e.g. Livery Company or Masonic events). However it may result in overlapping guest names if you have tables close together (e.g. a typical circular table layout). [Added in v5.2.2]
PerfectTablePlan now warns you if you try to import an Excel spreadsheet with >= 10,000 rows or >= 1,000 columns. This can happen when someone accidentally adds a space at row 1,048,576. [Added in v5.2.2]
Previously PerfectTablePlan defaulted to 100% scaling when printing, if Fit to page had not been used for the previous print. It now defaults to Fit to page as we feel this is more helpful. [Added in v5.2.2]
PerfectTablePlan now includes a MobileX XLSX export file type for importing. [Added in v5.2.2]
The Import Data window now uses the imported file extension to set the default format to CSV or Excel. [Added in v5.2.2]
Advanced and Professional editions:
The layout of Name only (radial) and Name only (banquet) (and the extended versions mentioned above) now allow more space for guest names on the outside of E-shaped tables. [Added in v5.2.2]
We have added a Livery Company sample plan. This plan shows that you can legibly print a floor plan with 148 names on a single sheet of A4 paper. It also shows the use of You are here personalised seating maps in the Stationery pane. Note that you need PerfectTablePlan Advanced or Professional edition to see the E-shaped table. [Added in v5.2.2]
Professional edition:
It is possible to import conflicting proximities for guests, e.g. both ‘next to’ and ‘near to’. In these circumstances the behaviour was undefined. Proximities are now set in the following order: ‘Near to’ then ‘Not next to’ then ‘Next to’ then ‘Not near to’. E.g. if 2 guests are set to have both ‘Near to’ and ‘Next to’ proximity, the ‘Next to’ proximity will 'overwrite' the ‘Near to’ proximity. [Added in v5.2.2]
Bug fixes:
Previously it was very slow to delete multiple guests if the Proximity pane was visible. This is now fixed. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
Previously snap to grid, room resizing and moving tables with cursor keys in the Floor Plan pane could be very slow for large plans. This is now fixed.[Fixed in v5.2.2]
PerfectTablePlan scales fonts smaller if it can’t fit names into the space available on the Floor Plan and Table Plan panes using the user-selected font. However it sometimes scaled fonts smaller than required. This is now fixed. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
The position of 45 degree text in Name only (radial) layout has been modified to stop the text overlapping the table. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
Name only (radial) and Name only (banquet) now do not wrap text across multiple lines, unless the display name includes a ** line break. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
Previously the Table Plan pane zoomed back after dropping a guest. This is now fixed. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
Previously the Floor Plan pane could change scroll position or zoom level after undo/redo. This is now fixed. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
Previously the number of columns in the VDU Chart pane was set back to 1 every time a read-only plan was refreshed from another computer. This is now fixed. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
‘section’ has been added as an editable term in the Guest Chart pane. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
Previously the installer showed various error messages if there was no ‘Documents’ folder.This is now fixed. [Fixed in v5.2.2]
Advanced and Professional editions:
Previously PerfectTablePlan could crash when changing the number of seats in an E-shaped table in the Schematic pane. This is now fixed.

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.2.1 (Jun 30, 2014)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.1.1 (Jul 15, 2013)

Enhancements:
The automatic seat assignment now takes account of how far apart tables are. For example, if a group ofm giest with next to/near to proximity can’t all be fitted on a single table it will attempt to place them on adjacent tables. Tables are considered to be adjacent if their centres are within 5m/15ft of each other.
The automatic seat assignment doesn’t take account of how far apart tables are.
‘Near to’ proximity guests that can’t be placed on the same table are placed on nearby tables.
As the automatic seat assignment is now solving a harder problem you may need to run it for a little longer to get the best solution. However we have also speeded up the automatic seat assignment (see 4. below). [Added in v5.1.0]
The automatic seat assignment will now attempt to sit guests opposite each other on narrow tables, for example on banquet tables and the sprigs of E-shaped tables. You can use the On narrow tables prefer near to/next to guests seated drop-down list in the Auto assign tab of the Preferences window to specify whether you prefer guests seated left/right or opposite each other.
Seats are considered opposite each other if the table is less than or equal to 2 metres (approximately 6 feet) in width and has an equal number of seats on each side.
The auto seat assignment has been improved. In particular it now makes more effort to satisfy at least 1 near to/next to proximity for each guest. It does this by:
An additional penalty for guests with no near to or next to proximities fulfilled.
Score ‘smoothing’ ensures that we don’t choose a seating that makes one guest really happy at the expense of making several others slightly miserable.
The automatic seat assignment is now significantly faster, per seating calculated. On a typical plan it is at least twice as fast. On some very large plans it may be as much as ten times faster. But on some plans with lots of small tables close together it may possibly be a little slower (see 1. above). Also we have increased the default attempts without improvement in the Auto assign tab of the Preferences window from 25 to 100.
You can now control whether the members of a group are displayed using their first name (e.g. Mr & Mrs John Smith) or intials (e.g. Mr & Mrs J. Smith) using the Display group members as field in the Names tab of the Preferences window. This affects the following situations:
listing by group in the Table chart or Guest chart panes
substituting into {group_members} in the Stationery pane
exporting members (formal) in the Export Data window
The default behaviour is now to show the first name.
In addition to solid colours and gradients, you can now also use textures/patterns to make your Floor plan and Table plan panes more realistic.
You can use any image in PNG, JPG or BMP format as a texture. We install a number of royalty free textures with PerfectTablePlan.
All these textures tile seamlessly (i.e. the top edge matches the bottom edge and the left edge matches the right edge). If you want to use a texture that doesn’t tile seamlessly try checking the mirror alternate tiles check box in the Select Texture window.
You can now use a gradient (instead of a solid colour) as the background in the Floor plan or Table plan pane.
In the Floor plan pane you can now check Freeze floor plan to prevent changes to the position of table, shape, image and text items. Note that you can still reassign guests and change some item properties. Thank you to several customers who requested this.
We have added a Set colours automatically button to the Vizualization colours window. This is particularly useful if you are changing from a 1 colour scheme to a 2 colour scheme.
In the Floor plan and Table plan panes you can now press a red flag button to show critical issues in your seating. For example a guest who has at least 1 ‘next to’ proximity, but isn’t sitting next to any of them. This is different from the conflict (lightning) button, which will show every unfulfilled ‘next to’ proximity. This new button allows you to quickly understand any major seating issues.
There is now a Group column in the Guests pane. This is useful if you want to sort or search guests by group in the Guests pane. It is also available in the Groups pane, but hidden by default.
When exporting a plan to the web you can now choose to export all details or only minimal details. Minimal details doesn’t include guest notes, special requirements, VIP status, custom fields etc. This may be useful if you want to export a version you can show to your guests. Thank you to George R and Lester K for suggesting this.
You can now optionally display the folder you have exported a file to using Windows Explorer on Windows and the Finder on Mac OS X. Thank you to Jonathan M for suggesting this.
Use Default display name format in the Names tab of the Preferences window to change the default display name for guests. The guest title, first name, first initial, last name, last initial and suffix are substituted into {title}, {first}, {f}, {last}, {l} and {suffix}, respectively.
If you change the Default display name format you will be given the option to update display names for existing guests. Thank you to Donna, Anne R and David S for suggesting this.
The default names for new tables and rows names can now be automatically generated using letters instead of numbers, e.g. “Table A”, “Table B” .. “Table Z”, “Table AA” .. etc. To use letters instead of numbers use the substitution field {next_table_letter} in the New table name format field in the Names tab of the Preferences window. Similarly you can use the substitution field {next_row_letter} in the New row name format field. Thank you to Tony for suggesting this.
You can now show group names instead guest names in the Floor plan and Table plan panes. Select Group from the Guests drop-down list.
You can now optionally show the group of a guest in the legend of the Table plan pane.
The Most Recently Accessed window now allows you to filter plans by date.
We have also increased the number of plans that can be shown to 10.
The Floor plan pane automatically scrolls if you drag to the edge of the pane. It now waits 0.5 seconds before starting to scroll. This helps to avoid accidental scrolling, for example when you are dragging from the Guests pane to the Floor plan pane.
Previously you could drop plan files you wanted to open and files you wanted to import (e.g. spreadsheets) onto the Guests or Groups pane. Now you can also drop them onto the Floor plan, Table plan, Schematic , Table chart, Guest chart and Report panes.
The Ignore first field is now visible in the Import data window without having to click the more/reveal button.
You can now optionally create a back-up file each time you print or export. You can control this from the Backups tab of the Preferences window.
You can now easily show all the backup files in the Find Plan Files window by selecting File>Backups.
PerfectTablePlan now checks backup files for unsaved changes (e.g. due to a crash or power outage) at startup. To disable this behaviour uncheck check automatically for unsaved changes in backup files in the Backups tab of the Preferences window.
PerfectTablePlan now reminds you to backup your plan files after the 10th, 100th and then every 500th save. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! You can disable this warning in the warning window or in the Warnings tab of the Preferences window.
You can now change the size of the font used for displaying seat numbers on tables by selecting Seat numbers (small), seat numbers (medium) or Seat numbers (large) from the Places drop-down list in the Floor plan and Table plan panes. The size of the seat numbers in the VDU chart pane are set by the Places drop-down list in the Floor plan pane. Thank you to Paul C, Alan B, Chris S, Tony W and Glenn R for pointing out issues with seat text sizing in v5.0.7.
The Select groups window now shows the number of guests and up to the first 2 members in each group. This makes it easier to distinguish between multiple groups with the same name.
Next to, near to, not next to and not near to proximity lines between seats on a head table or row of seats or between seats on the same side of a banquet, rectangular, custom or E-shaped table are now drawn as curves to make them easier to distinguish.
When Next to, Near to, Not next to and Not near to proximity lines are shown together on the Floor plan or Table plan panes, the Next to and Not near to lines are shown thicker to make them easier to distinguish. Thank you to Lori C for the suggestion.
The headings of the troubleshooting report have been improved to show how many of each issue there are.
It is rarely advisable to set the Selected and Drawing area Inside colour to the same colour. You are now warned if you do.
The padding (spacing between columns) has been increased in the Table plan pane legend. Thanks to Anne R. for suggesting this.
You can choose to use non-native (i.e. not provided by the operating system) Open and Save windows by unchecking use native file open/save windows in the General tab of the Preferences window. We don’t recommend this unless you have problems with the native windows (as occurred with a previous release on Mac OS X 10.8.2, for example).
Some of the options in the General tab of the Preferences window have been moved to a new Names tab.
We have added more video links to documentation.
We have made various minor improvements to the documentation.
The PDF version of the Help documentation has been removed from the download to the reduce the file size. However you can still download it from the documentation page on our website.
We have added a new sample table plan based on the 2009 G20 dinner. We have taken some liberties with the proximities - but would you want Berlusconi sitting next to Strauss-Kahn?!
Sample plans and stationery templates are now not removed when PerfectTablePlan is uninstalled, in case you have modified them. You can easily remove them yourself.
Bug fixes:
Previously PerfectTablePlan crashed if you tried to print with no printer attached. This is now fixed. Thank you to several customers who reported this.
Under certain circumstances circular tables could be displayed as oval tables. This is now fixed. Thank you to Casey Z and James D for reporting this.
If you deleted multiple guests from the Guests or Groups pane with the Table chart, Guest chart, Stationery or Report pane at the front it could cause PerfectTablePlan to become unresponsive for a long time. This is now fixed.
A Section column was sometimes incorrectly display in PerfectTablePlan Home edition. This is now fixed. Thank you to Chris M and Lawrence P for reporting this.
Previously if there were warning during import the Import data window did not close. This is now fixed.
The number of match(es) found in the Find Plan Files window was previously always shown as 0. This is now fixed.
You can now undo Insert>Quick Add Guests... operations.
Previously if you closed the Table spacing window in the Floor plan pane, changed pane and then returned to the Floor plan pane, the Table spacing window would reappear. This is now fixed. Thank you to several customers who reported this.
Previously long names were sometimes truncated in the Floor plan and Table plan panes when the ** line separator was used. This is now fixed. Thank you to Peter D, Kate H, Sandra W, Alan and Anne R for reporting this.
Empty seats are no longer displayed as blank rows in the Table plan pane legend.
Previously, if the Floor plan pane units were feet, each new shape added would default to smaller than the previous one. This is now fixed.
PerfectTablePlan now handles large Windows fonts better.

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.7 (Nov 14, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.5 (Sep 14, 2012)

Enhancements:
If a name cannot be displayed in the space available in the Floor plan or Table plan pane, the size of the font will be reduced until it fits. [Added in v5.0.5]
You can now use a ‘rubber box’ to select items in the Floor plan and Table plan panes. Hold down the left mouse button and drag a box. All the items intersecting the box will be selected. Thank you to Namal P, Philip M, Jan S and Andrew B for suggesting this. If you click the right mouse button and drag while zoomed in to the Floor plan pane you can pan left, right, up and down (the previous behaviour for left drag). [Added in v5.0.5]
When you drag guests to a seat or table in the Floor plan or Table plan pane all the seats that will be assigned to are now highlighted. This gives better visual feedback on which seats will be reassigned. Previously it only highlighted the seat/table you were dragging over. [Added in v5.0.5]
Every fifth line in the Floor plan pane grid is now more prominent. This should make it easier to count grid squares. Thanks to Jim B for suggesting this. [Added in v5.0.5]
Advanced and Professional editions:
The amount of space available for text Name only (radial) and Name only (text) layouts now adjusts to the distance between the ‘legs’ of an E-shaped table. [Added in v5.0.5]
Bug fixes:
The font size was limited to 200 pt in the Stationery pane. This has now been increased to 512 pt. Thanks for Malcolm T for reporting this. [Fixed in v5.0.5]
If more than 10 anonymous groups were added subsequent groups were all named “Unnamed group 10” instead of “Unnamed group 11”, “Unnamed group 12” etc. This is now fixed. Thanks for Donna L for reporting this. [Fixed in v5.0.5]
Head tables created without an automatic size always had the ‘down’ size set to the ‘across’ size. This is now fixed. Thanks to Tantl for reporting this. [Fixed in v5.0.5]
When you deleted 2 tables with 8 seats each from the Floor plan or Table plan panes it previously prompted Delete 18 floor plan item(s)? (2 tables + 16 chairs = 18 items). This was a bit confusing. It now doesn’t count the seats and says Delete 2 floor plan item(s)?. [Fixed in v5.0.5]
Advanced and Professional editions:
PerfectTablePlan sometimes crashed after deleting custom fields. This is now fixed. Thanks to Bill S for reporting this. [Fixed in v5.0.5]

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.4 (Jul 31, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.3 (Jul 31, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.2 (Jun 22, 2012)

Guest properties:
You can now edit a guest property for multiple guests in a single operation by selecting Edit>Guest Property from the main menu (or a right click menu).
You can edit the following properties for multiple guests:
Anon status
Title
First name
Last name
Display name
Suffix
Gender
Age
Meal
Special requirements
Notes
VIP status
Locked status
RSVP status
Custom fields (Advanced and Professional editions only)
For example, if you want to change the gender of 50 guests to Male, just select the guests (e.g. in the Guests pane) and then select Edit>Guest Property>Gender>Male.
On Windows you can use keyboard accelerators to change guest properties without using the mouse. For example, you can set all the selected guests to Male by typing Alt+E+Y+G.Press the Alt key to see the accelerators.
The old Edit>Locked (Ctrl+K) toggled menu has been replaced by Edit>Guest Property>Locked>Yes (Ctrl+K) and Edit>Guest Property>Locked>No (Ctrl+Shift+K), making it easier to lock and unlock guests.
You can change a property for all guests at a table by selecting a table in the Floor plan, Table plan or Schematic pane. You can change a property for guests in a group by selecting a group in the Groups pane. [Added in v5.0.0]
There is now an additional RSVP status ‘Arrived’. This may be useful if you are checking-in guests as they arrive at an event. [Added in v5.0.0]
Groups pane:
The number of guests in a group is now written in brackets after the group in the Groups pane. This is useful for seeing how many guests there are in a group at a glance. [Added in v5.0.0]
Floor plan and Table plan panes:
The tableware check box in the Floor plan and Table plan panes in v4 has been replaced by a Places drop-down list (you may have to click the more button at the top left of the pane to see it). This allows you to show Tableware or the Seat number at the place setting in front of a guest. This means you can now show seat number and guest name at the same time in these panes.
If you choose Seat number the seat number will be shown in the same font as the table name, but automatically resized to fit. If the seat number if more than 2 characters long (e.g. because you have used the custom seat numbering available in the Advanced and Professional editions) it may be truncated or overlap other text. [Added in v5.0.0]
Schematic pane:
Seats selected in the Schematic pane are now ignored for the purposes of deleting tables. This makes it easier to delete tables. [Added in v5.0.0]
Table chart pane:
You can now hide table names in the Table chart pane by unchecking the Tables check box. This is particularly useful when you have a single E-shaped table. [Added in v5.0.0]
VDU Chart pane:
PerfectTablePlan has a new VDU Chart pane. This pane shows seat assignments as scrolling text (like film credits). This is ideal if you want to display your seat assignments electronically on a laptop, VDU or plasma screen instead of on a printed chart. For example, you can plug the VDU output of a laptop running PerfectTablePlan into a Plasma screen at a venue. This makes it much easier to make last minute changes to the seat assignments.
You can customize many of the properties of this pane including the text font, colour, size and scroll speed. You can also display the pane full screen. The footer text can only be changed in the Professional Edition. [Added in v5.0.0]
Stationery pane:
You can now use word wrap for text in the Stationery pane. This will add line breaks if the text won’t fit on a single line. Word wrap can be set on or off separately for each text item.
If an item of text is too large to fit on an item of stationery, the font size will be scaled smaller to fit.
If you are using word wrap then scaling will be applied if necessary after word wrap. [Added in v5.0.0]
The Stationery pane now handles left and right aligned text better. Note that plans with left or right aligned text in the Stationery pane created with earlier versions of PerfectTablePlan may require the text to be repositioned when read in to v5. You will be warned if this is the case. [Added in v5.0.0]
Overtures Capital Emboss place cards (6 per sheet) have been added to the stationery database.
Reporting pane:
A new Troubleshooting report is now available from the Reports pane. This reports on 40 potential problem issues, including:
Guests with duplicate names
Guests with non-matching gender and title
VIP guests not seated at VIP tables
Guests with all 'Next to' and 'Near to' proximities unfulfilled
Guests with no proximity
Duplicate group names
Groups with no members
Tables with empty seats
This report allows you to quickly spot potential problems in your plan. [Added in v5.0.0]
The Summary report in the Report pane now shows the number of proximities in a plan. This allows you to spot if you have excessive numbers of proximity settings. Large numbers of proximities (e.g. 100,000+) can significantly affect the performance of PerfectTablePlan. [Added in v5.0.0]
Images:
You can now add images into the Floor plan and Stationery panes in all editions of PerfectTablePlan. Previously this was only possible in the Advanced and Professional editions of PerfectTablePlan. [Added in v5.0.0]
15. The following clipart is now installed with PerfectTablePlan [Added in v5.0.0]:
Floor plan clipart
Decorative clipart
Wedding clipart
Masonic clipart
PerfectTablePlan clipart
Automatic seat assignment:
The automatic seat assignment has been speeded up, particularly for plans with large tables, many VIP guests or lots of proximities. It is at least twice as fast in most cases and more than ten times faster in some cases. [Added in v5.0.0]
The automatic seat assignment scoring has been improved to reduce the number of single empty seats. [Added in v5.0.0]
Exporting:
You can now export your guest list and floor plan to the web in a couple of mouse clicks. This allows any device with a web browser to access your table plan, including an iPad, Android tablet or smart phone.
The web version of the plan contains full data about guests, groups and tables.
Hovering over a guest in the left pane shows where they are seated in the right pane. You can also search guests and groups and change between interfaces more suitable for mouse-based and touch-based devices.
You can’t change the plan from a web browser, but you can re-export your plan to web and anyone looking at the plan in a browser will automatically be prompted on whether they wish to load the updates.
For example, you could have a single laptop running PerfectTablePlan at a venue and 5 people viewing the plan using a web browser on their iPads via wifi. Any changes you make on the laptop and export to the web are then pushed out simultaneously to all 5 iPads. [Added in v5.0.0]
You now have the following additional options in the Export window:
display the document in the default application (e.g. display a PDF document in Adobe Acrobat) copy the document location to the clipboard, so you can paste it create a new email with the document added
Note that not all of these options are available with all types of document. [Added in v5.0.0]
The Export data window remembers settings and uses them as defaults next time. This can save time if you are doing a lot of exporting. [Added in v5.0.0]
Other:
The proximities are now always written into the plan (.tp) file in a consistent order. This makes it easier to difference or merge two versions of a plan file using standard text difference and merge tools. [Added in v5.0.0]
Plans now load faster. Some large plans load in half the time. [Added in v5.0.0]
A warning is now displayed if you try to unassign guests locked to seats. [Added in v5.0.0]
A more informative error message is now displayed if you try to load a badly formatted plan file. [Added in v5.0.0]
PerfectTablePlan now includes import mappings for:
online wedding planner zankyou.com
online RSVP manager paperlesspost.com
online event registration system eventbrite.com
To support this, PerfectTablePlan import now recognizes the following RSVP value mappings during import:
import value
maps to RSVP status
You now have the option to open sample plans in the Getting Started window. [Added in v5.0.0]
Many of the application icons have been updated. [Added in v5.0.0]
In the Groups pane you can now drag a guest onto any member of a group to assign the guest to that group. This is easier than trying to drag onto the group. [Added in v5.0.0]
The Print>Print setup... has been replaced by Print>Page Setup... and the associated window has changed.
Export:
A paste to Microsoft Excel button has been added to the Guest chart, Table chart and Report panes. You need to have Excel installed for this to work. [Added in v5.0.0]
A paste to Microsoft Word button has been added to the Report pane. You need to have Word installed for this to work. [Added in v5.0.0]
Multi-user
If you open a plan file as ‘read-only’ PerfectTablePlan can reload the plan if it is updated by another application (e.g. PerfectTablePlan running on another PC). This can be very useful if you have multiple computers accessing the same plan file.
In the General tab of the Preferences window you can configure what to do when an update is detected:
Do nothing; or
Prompt to reload plan (the default); or
Reload plan without prompting (as long as you haven’t modified it)
The last option is particularly useful if you are displaying a VDU chart on one PC while updating the plan from another PC. [Added in v5.0.0]
Installation:
Previously PerfectTablePlan would not install unless you had a Documents folder. If you don’t have a Documents folder it now installs plans, stationery, clipart etc to:
C:\Program Data\PerfectTablePlan
(The exact location may vary depending on your operating system and system configuration.) [Added in v5.0.0]

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.7 (Feb 25, 2012)

Backward/forward compatibility:
This version can read plan (.tp) files saved by any earlier version of PerfectTablePlan. But reading 4.2.7 plans into versions of the software before 4.2.0 may lose some data.
Bug fixes:
Fixed a bug in the automatic seat assignment that meant some improved solutions might be missed. Thank you to Peter D for reporting this. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
The Table Spacing window reappeared each time the Floor plan pane was displayed, even after table spacing was turned off. This is now fixed. Thank you to Malcolm D for reporting this. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
Fixed a crash bug that sometimes occurred using the Floor plan pane, particularly when snapping objects to a grid in the Floor plan pane. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
Fixed a crash bug that sometimes occurred when deleting guests from the Guests pane when the Stationery pane was also visible. Thank you to Stuart H for reporting this. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
The Progress bar now shows when reading in large plans. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
The -import_type command line argument was only recognised if it was lower case. This has now been fixed so that case is unimportant. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
If you have the mouse option Automatically move pointer to the default button in a dialog box set in Windows Control panel>Mouse>Pointer Options this can cause tables and other items to be moved unintentionally in the Floor plan pane. This is because PerfectTablePlan isn’t able to tell the difference between the user moving the mouse and Windows moving the mouse. We now show a warning message explaining this if you double click in the Floor plan pane with this Windows setting on. Thank you to to Guy “DrTeeth” S. for reporting this. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
Updated Microsoft msvcr80.dll library from v8.0.50727.762 to v8.0.50727.6195 to address possible Microsoft security vulnerabilities. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
Advanced edition only:
Fixed a bug that could cause spurious error messages when importing custom fields. Thank you to Geraint B for reporting this. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
Advanced & Professional editions
Fixed a bug that could cause defaults for custom fields with type=‘text’ to sometimes be set incorrectly when opening a document. Thank you to Angela M for reporting this. [Fixed in v4.2.7]
Professional edition only:
Fixed a bug that caused custom proximity to sometimes be scored incorrectly for custom fields of type Yes/No. [Fixed in v4.2.7]

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.6 (Feb 20, 2011)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.5 (Feb 20, 2011)

Enhancements:
The following enhancements have been made since version 4.2.4:
The number of proximity lines shown in the Floor plan pane can sometimes be a bit overwhelming, especially for large events. You can now hold down the Shift key to only draw proximity lines for guests whose seat or table is selected. Thank you to Lori for suggesting this. [Added in v4.2.5]
The Find Plan Files window has been added. You can use this to quickly search for plan (.tp) or backup files (.tpb) that you can’t find using File>Open or File>Open recent. It may take a few minutes to search your whole harddisk. [Added in v4.2.5]
A Last modified column has been added to the Most recently accessed window. You can now also sort the columns by clicking on the column headers. The OK button has been renamed Open. [Added in v4.2.5]
PerfectTablePlan now shows a helpful error message if you try to File>Import a plan (.tp) file instead of using File>Open. [Added in v4.2.5]
Name badge templates (A4 and letter sized) have been added to the stationery samples. Thank you to Sue A for suggesting this. [Added in v4.2.5]
An import mapping has been added for exports from weddingtoolbox.com. [Added in v4.2.5]
We have added some documentation on how to scale a background image correctly in PerfectTablePlan v4.2.5>How do I?>Floor plan>Use an image of the venue. [Added in v4.2.5]
Windows only
Clicking on the Help button in the Preferences window now jumps to the appropriate subsection of the help for that window (previously it just went to the top of the page). [Added in v4.2.5]
A feedback form is now displayed in a web page when you uninstall a PerfectTablePlan trial. [Added in v4.2.5]
Bug fixes:
When tables are added they are automatically laid out in the Floor plan pane to try and avoid overlaps. This layout could appear rather erratic if the Seats drop-down list was set to Rectangular+name or Chair+name, or if the tables were rotated. This has now been fixed. [Fixed in v4.2.5]
When importing a spreadsheet or CSV file the names of couples were sometimes imported incorrectly. For example “Mr & Mrs J Smith” might be imported at “Mr J S mith” and “Mrs mith” instead of “Mr J Smith” and “Mrs Smith”. This is now fixed. Thanks to Guy for reporting it. [Fixed in v4.2.5]
Advanced edition
When exporting guest data the seat numbers of tables with anti-clockwise or custom seat numbers were not exported correctly. This is now fixed. Thanks to David S-E for reporting it. [Fixed in v4.2.5]
Windows only
The error message has been improved if an Excel spreadsheet is too large to import (e.g. one that contains millions of empty rows). Thanks to Oyvind for reporting it. [Fixed in v4.2.5]
When importing an Excel .xls or .xlsx file it sometimes prompted “Do you want to save the changes you made to ?” when no changes were being made by PerfectTablePlan to the spreadsheet. This is now fixed. Thank you to Andrew S for reporting it. [Fixed in v4.2.5]

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.4 (Feb 20, 2011)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.3 (Oct 6, 2010)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.1.2 (Dec 14, 2009)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.1.0 (Sep 8, 2009)

PerfectTablePlan now supports Windows 7 in addition to existing OSs Windows 2000, XP and Vista
You can now split and join columns in the Import window. The imported file is not affected.
You can now use “+ ” in the Full name(s) column of the Import data window or in the Quick add guests window to add anonymous guests.
In the absence of a ‘group’ column previous versions of PerfectTablePlan automatically imported consecutive guests with the same last name into the same group. This works well for family events, but less well for business events. You can now disable this functionality by unchecking the group consecutive guests with same last name check box in the Import data window. You need to click on the More/Reveal button to see this option.
If you imported a name containing “&”, “+” or “and” (e.g. imported “Mr & Mrs J Smith”) into the Full name(s) field) into previous versions of PerfectTablePlan it automatically assumed the record contain more than one guest. You can now force it to import the record as a single guest by checking the single guest per row check box in the Import data window. You need to click on the More/Reveal button to see this option.
Multiple columns can now be imported into the guest Notes field.
When importing full names PerfectTablePlan now guesses that “von”, “van”, “da” etc are part of the guest’s last name, not part of their first name e.g. “Johannes Diderik van der Waals” will be broken into first names “Johannes Diderik” and last names “van der Waals” (not first names “Johannes Diderik van der” and last names “Waals”, as previously).
You can now delete multiple selected rows or columns in the Import data window (previously they could only be deleted one at a time).
There is now a standard import mapping for the Summit Software event planner.
You can now select multiple items in the Floor plan and Table plan panes. Use Ctrl+click to select/unselect multiple items.
You can now search the Floor plan. Items with text that matches the selected text are highlighted, regardless of case.
You can now set proximity by guest in the Floor plan and Table plan panes.
A View>Show selected in menu item has been added. This allows you to select an item (or items) in one page and highlight it in another pane. For example, if the Guests and Floor plan panes are visible you can select 2 guests in the Guests pane and highlight them in the Floor plan pane by select View>Show selected in>Floor plan pane (or Ctrl+D).
If you are displaying the Floor plan pane with grid lines, the grid lines are now shown when you print/export. Note that a large number of grid lines can slow down printing. You can hide grid lines in the Dimension window.
Text items added to the Floor plan pane now default to the same rotation, font and colour as the previously added text. This makes adding multiple items of text more convenient.
Unassigned seats are now shown with a cross through them when you set the Tables drop-down list at the top of the Floor plan pane to Unassigned. Previously this only worked for Name+unassigned.
Items added to the Floor plan pane are now selected. This makes newly added items easier to distinguish from existing items.
The default colours have been improved.
Anonymous guests are now fully supported. The name of an anonymous guest is, by default, “ guest”. However you can change this in the General tab of the Preferences window.
You can now right click on a group in the Groups pane and select Insert guest into group.
The automatic capitalisation of guest names is now turned off by default. To enable it go to the Preferences window.
A Terms tab has been added to the Preferences window. This allows you to change any of the words that appear inside the Table plan, Guest chart or Report panes.
A Edit>Select all menu item has been added. This selects all items in the current pane.
A File>Page setup menu item has been added. This allows you to change paper size or other printer options, the same as pressing the Setup button in the Print window.
The fields used to set the room size and chair size in the Dimensions window have been improved.
The default Seat width in the Floor plan dimensions window has been changed from 0.8 metres/2.62 feet to 0.87 metres/2.85 feet. This gives closer to industry standard sizes for round tables. This only affects new plans.
Guest names can now be displayed in additional format Last,Title First. The various formats are now listed in alphabetical order (e.g. in the Display drop-down list of the Floor plan pane).
There are some improvements to the automatic seat assignment, resulting in better and/or faster seat assignments.
Additional stationery substitution text {guest_meal_multi_line} has been added. This allows you to display courses that has been separated by commas (e.g. “soup, fish, flan”) on separate lines.
The default setting for the For drop-down list in the Guest chart pane has been changed to All.
VIPs are now ordered before non-VIPs when listed within a group, for example in the Guest chart pane with By set to Group.
The Insert guests scratch-pad window has been renamed to the Quick add guests window.
The Statistics pane has been renamed to the Report pane.
The date and time of creation has been added to the summary report in the Report pane.
The settings of the Proximity pane are now remembered when you re-open a plan.
The More/Reveal button has been moved from the right to the left of each pane, to make it more visible.
Balloon tips appear. These are intended to prompt new users. Each tip only appears once for 10 seconds and you can dismiss them by clicking on them
Added some extra levels of hierarchy to the help documentation.
Updated the sample themes to include gradients.
Added a Default button in the Table properties window so that the table colour can easily be set back to the default. The button is hidden if the default is already set

PerfectTablePlan Changelog

What's new in PerfectTablePlan 7.0.0

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.2.3 (Mar 22, 2023)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.2.2 (Jan 25, 2023)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.2.1 (Jan 2, 2023)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.2.0 (Oct 5, 2021)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.1.3 (Aug 26, 2021)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.1.1 (Oct 5, 2020)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.1.0 (Jul 27, 2020)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.0.6 (Aug 2, 2019)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.0.5 (May 27, 2019)

New in PerfectTablePlan 6.0.2 (Feb 20, 2019)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.2.3 (Sep 9, 2015)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.2.2 (Mar 3, 2015)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.2.1 (Jun 30, 2014)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.1.1 (Jul 15, 2013)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.7 (Nov 14, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.5 (Sep 14, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.4 (Jul 31, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.3 (Jul 31, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 5.0.2 (Jun 22, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.7 (Feb 25, 2012)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.6 (Feb 20, 2011)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.5 (Feb 20, 2011)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.4 (Feb 20, 2011)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.2.3 (Oct 6, 2010)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.1.2 (Dec 14, 2009)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.1.0 (Sep 8, 2009)

New in PerfectTablePlan 4.0.2 (Nov 11, 2008)