Make your table plan

The table plan has two views. Floor plan shows your tables laid out in a room, with each seat drawn around them. List view shows each table as a card with the guests at it.

Switch between them with List view and Floor plan. The app remembers which one you last used. On a phone or a touch screen, the table plan opens in list view unless you've chosen otherwise.

The headline at the top tells you how far you've got, for example "40 seated, 12 to place", and how many seats are still free.

A guest with dietary needs has a short badge by their name, such as V for vegetarian or GF for gluten-free. A severe allergy shows as a red badge.

Drag a table to move it. Select a table to open Table details, where you can change its name, seats, shape, seating arrangement, width and height, tick Top Table, or select Delete table. Select Save changes when you're done.

Table details also lists every seat by number. Select an empty seat (Empty seat, choose a guest) to search for someone waiting and seat them there.

To seat someone, drag their name from Still to place and drop it near a seat. To move a seated guest, drag them to an empty seat. Drop them on someone else's seat and the two swap.

Drag an empty part of the plan to move around it. Zoom with the zoom buttons, or select Fit to view to see every table. With a table selected, the arrow keys nudge it.

Changes save automatically. Undo and Redo on the toolbar (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y) step back and forward through changes to the layout, such as moving or resizing a table.

Drag a name from Still to place onto a table card. You can search Still to place by name or group, sort it by first name, surname or group, and filter by reply: Everyone, Attending, Not replied or Declined.

To change a table, open its menu and choose Edit or Delete. Deleting a table moves the guests at it back to Still to place.

If you have more than 8 tables, a search box helps you find a table or a seated guest.

A table that is full won't take another guest.

Each guest has seating preferences that AI Seat follows. On the Guest list, open a guest's menu and choose Seating preferences. You can set:

Seating group: the people they should sit with, in your own words.

Top table: AI Seat sits them beside the two of you, with their partner if they bring one. The top table article explains how the seats are arranged.

Must sit with: guests to seat at the same table.

Keep apart from: guests to seat at different tables. A guest can't be on both lists for the same person.

You can also bring groups and top table guests in from a spreadsheet: add Group and Top table columns and import your guest list.

Editing seating preferences needs Premium or Unlimited.

If it's easier to say than to set guest by guest, you can type it. For example: keep Dad's side away from Uncle Andy. The kids sit near their parents. Gran goes on the top table.

You'll find the box in three places: Tell AI Seat in your own words on the Before AI Seat makes a plan check, Anything else AI Seat should know? when it asks whether to keep the seats you've chosen, and Tell it something else on the report after a run.

Type what you want under Who should sit together, apart, or at the top table, then select Read it. AI (Claude) reads it against your guest list and lists the rules it found, such as Keep Sam Lee and Andy Hart apart, Seat Mia Hart with Tom Hart, or Joan Lee at the top table, using the names on your list. Each one shows the words it came from.

Untick any rule that isn't right. Nothing is saved until you select Save 1 rule and seat everyone (or Save 2 rules, and so on). Select Change what I said to go back and edit your words.

If a name could mean more than one guest, or it can't tell who you meant, it doesn't guess. It lists those words under Not sure who you meant. Use their names as they are on your guest list, or set them in their seating preferences.

Saved rules show in each guest's seating preferences, where you can change or remove them. A new keep-apart rule replaces a sit-with rule on the same two guests, and the other way round.

Only names, seating groups, sides and who is whose plus-one are sent to be read. Contact details are not, and guests who have declined are left out.

AI Seat doesn't use AI to choose seats. It places people by set rules, written down below, so you can see why anyone is where they are. The only part that uses AI is reading what you type in your own words, and you check those rules before they're saved.

The rules, in the order they win:

Guests who have declined don't get a seat.

Keep apart is never broken. If someone can't be seated without breaking it, they're left without a seat and the report says why.

A party stays together: a plus-one sits with the guest who brought them, and guests linked by Must sit with sit at the same table. If Must sit with and Keep apart contradict each other, keep apart wins.

The two of you go in the middle of the top table, with the guests you've marked for it around you. Nobody else goes on the top table, and nobody already on it is moved.

Each group sits together: their seating group if they have one, otherwise their side. A group too big for one table is shared as evenly as the tables allow.

Everyone else goes where they fit best: same group, then same side, then similar age.

Guests who haven't replied yet are given a seat. If they decline later, their seat frees up.

Keep apart means different tables, and where there's room, not the table next door either. Tables whose seats come within about a metre of each other on the floor plan count as neighbours.

If two people kept apart still end up at neighbouring tables, AI Seat tries swapping one of them with someone from their own group at a table further away, so nobody loses who they sit with. The report says who it moved and why.

If it can't find a swap, the report names both people and both tables under Worth a look, so you can move a table on the floor plan or swap someone yourself.

If you choose Keep them, seat the rest and a seat you chose now breaks a keep-apart, for example because of a rule you added since, AI Seat moves one of the two and says so. It never moves the two of you or anyone on the top table.

When spare seats are spread thinly across tables, AI Seat makes room at one table for a family tied together by Must sit with, rather than splitting them up.

Select AI Seat. The first time, and again when most guests still have no group, it shows Before AI Seat makes a plan: how many guests have a group, how many are marked for the top table, and how many have a keep-together or keep-apart rule. Select Go to the guest list to fill these in, Seat them now, or Tell AI Seat in your own words.

If you have no tables yet, select Suggest tables and seat everyone. AI Seat shows Start with these tables?, with a top table for the two of you and anyone you've marked, and enough round tables for everyone else. Choose 8, 10 or 12 seats at each round table, and Yes or No, we'll sit with guests for the top table. Select Add these tables and seat everyone, or Set groups first.

If there aren't enough seats for everyone coming or yet to reply, AI Seat shows Not enough seats for everyone. Choose a table size and select the button to add that many tables and seat everyone, or select Seat who fits.

If some guests already have a seat away from the top table, AI Seat asks Keep the seats you've chosen? Select Keep them, seat the rest to work around them, or Start again to re-seat everyone. The top table stays as it is either way.

Tables AI Seat adds still count towards your plan's table limit. If they would take you over it, AI Seat says so and suggests bigger tables or upgrading.

When AI Seat has finished, How AI Seat placed everyone shows what it did.

Worth a look lists anything to check: guests it couldn't seat and why, parties it had to split, guests with no group or side, guests marked for the top table who didn't fit, people kept apart who are still at neighbouring tables, anyone it moved because a chosen seat broke a keep-apart, guests who declined but are still on a table you set, and guests with accessibility needs, so you can check their table suits them.

Below that are notes such as how many guests were seated, how many seats are still free, who was kept apart, any groups shared between tables, and how many guests still to reply have a seat held.

Who sits where gives each table with the groups at it and how many from each.

Undo on the report puts the seats back exactly as they were before AI Seat ran. If AI Seat added tables, Undo takes them away again. Use it before you select Done.

Undo doesn't remove rules you saved from what you typed. Those stay in each guest's seating preferences until you change them.

Export PDF and Print for guests are on the Floor plan toolbar.

Export PDF downloads an A4 landscape table plan: a cover, a drawing of the room, who sits at each table, and everyone A to Z so the venue can find a name quickly.

Print for guests opens Print for your guests. Pick a style, then Preview or Download the Seating chart (an A2 poster with every table on one sheet, which also prints well at A1 or A3) or the Table cards (A5, one page per table, with the names of everyone at it). If nobody is seated yet, every table reads "To be seated".

To have the seating chart printed and sent to you, select Have the seating chart printed for you. It's a poster on 170gsm silk, A2 for £29 or A1 for £39, with tracked delivery included.