Printable Seating Chart
Free printable seating chart. Drop tables onto the canvas below, click any seat to drop in a guest, export a PDF, send to your printer. The PDF includes the visual chart at the top and a per-table guest list underneath — both print clean on US Letter (8.5×11) and A4 (210×297mm).
Most printing happens late in the planning process — venue setup the morning of, catering team copies for kitchen plating, day-of coordinator binder. The PDF is optimized for those workflows: large enough for the venue's entrance display, scannable enough for the catering team's clipboard.
What gets printed
Page 1 (and only page for most events): the chart at the top, the guest list grouped by table underneath. The chart shows tables and assigned seats with guest initials in gold circles. The guest list shows each table label, the seats per table, and the filled-vs-empty count.
Header: event name and date as you typed them in the tool. Footer: the watermark (free tier) or a clean date stamp (Pro tier).
Print resolution: 2x pixel ratio for clean readability at the venue's entrance-display size. Tested on standard office laser printers and home inkjet printers — both produce legible output without manual zoom.
Print sizes that work
US Letter (8.5×11 inches): the default for most US weddings, classrooms, and corporate events. The PDF fits one chart per page at this size.
A4 (210×297mm): the default for European, UK, Canadian (some), and Australian events. The PDF scales without distortion.
Tabloid (11×17 inches): print at 2x scale through your printer's scale option. Useful for very large events or for posting at the venue entrance where guests need to read from across a room.
Plotter / banner-size: not directly supported, but the underlying PNG can be exported from the canvas (Pro tier) and printed at any plotter shop. Most weddings don't need this; some galas and large fundraisers do.
Watermark behavior
Free plan PDFs include a Seat Chart App diagonal watermark across the page at ~18% opacity. The watermark doesn't obscure the chart or the guest list — venue setup crews and day-of coordinators have used watermarked PDFs without complaint. The footer line credits the tool.
Pro PDFs have no watermark. Cleaner for venue entrance displays and for the day-of coordinator's binder. The $9 one-time Event pass also removes the watermark for 180 days — appropriate for one big event where the visual cleanliness matters.
Quick tips
- Print one large copy for the venue entrance and one tabletop-sized for the catering team. Same PDF, two print sizes.
- Keep the printed copy of the chart with the day-of coordinator. They use it for walk-ins and last-minute swaps; the printed list is the canonical record once the event starts.
- Print a second copy as a backup. Murphy's law of weddings: the first copy will get a coffee stain or be misplaced.
- Tabloid (11×17) is the best size for venue-entrance display — guests can read it from 10 feet away. Use your printer's scale option to print US Letter PDF at 2x.
- For multi-section events (sponsor sections, classroom rotations), print one PDF per section rather than trying to fit everything on one page.
Frequently asked questions
- What file format does the tool export?
- PDF on every plan. The PDF is print-optimized — proper margins, embedded fonts, 2x pixel ratio for the chart image. Pro adds PNG export and a CSV of the guest list grouped by table (useful for caterers).
- Will the printed chart match what I see on screen?
- Closely yes. The PDF is generated from the same canvas rendering you edit, exported at 2x pixel ratio for print clarity. Color reproduction depends on your printer — gold seat circles render as a brown-yellow on grayscale printers (still legible), and full color on color printers.
- Can I print the guest list separately?
- The free PDF includes both chart and guest list on one page. Pro adds a CSV export of just the guest list grouped by table — copy-paste into your own document if you want only the list, or print the CSV directly from Excel/Google Sheets for the catering team.
- What if my event has more tables than fit on one page?
- For very large events (50+ tables), the chart still fits one page but the guest list may need a second page. We're working on multi-page export for the next Pro release. In the meantime, export the CSV (Pro) and print the guest list separately as a multi-page document.
- Will the watermark look bad in the venue display?
- It's noticeable but not distracting. The watermark is ~18% opacity diagonal across the page — readable as "Seat Chart App" if you look for it, but invisible against the chart and the guest list. For high-end weddings and corporate events, Pro removes it entirely.