PerfectTablePlan file format

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PerfectTablePlan plan (.tp) files are stored as text in an XML format.

The format is fairly straightforward and you should be able to work out most of the details by creating a few .tp files from PerfectTablePlan and examining them. A few important points are noted below.

Indexing

Where different records in the XML reference each other they do so by numerical indexes starting from 0.

For PerfectTablePlan v4.1.0 or later you should set the version to 8, e.g.:

Advanced and Professional edition only

<guest_custom_fields>..</guest_custom_fields>

Contains information about custom fields.

The index is the 0 based index into data values. E.g. if index is 2 then the data for this field is the third custom data value stored in each guest record.

Type	Meaning
0	Yes/No
1	Text
2	Number
3	Currency
4	Selection
5	Tags

The image is encoded in data according to format, which must be either PNG or JPG.

Professional edition only

id attribute

Many of the items have an id attribute. The id attribute is a globally unique identifier for that item. PerfectTablePlan uses url encoded GUIDs based on the Random version of the DCE standard (e.g. "{bc7dd14c-f64a-4dc2-83c3-8db1f41d3679}"), but any unique string of characters is permitted. The id will not change, e.g. it will be the same value when exported/saved as it was when first imported/read in.

The id can be very useful if you want to write a PerfectTablePlan XML file from another application, make some edits in PerfectTablePlan and then read the modified information back.

This section contains details of all the guests.

The guest group attribute is the index of the corresponding group record.

The meaning of the accepted attribute is given below:

Accepted attribute	Meaning
0	RSVP Unset
1	RSVP Accepted
2	RSVP Sent
3	RSVP Declined
4	RSVP Cancelled

This section contains details of all the groups.

This section contains details of all the tables.

The meaning of the shape attribute is given below:

Shape attribute	Meaning
0	Circular
1	Rectangular
2-5	no longer used
6	Custom
7	Head
8	Banquet
9	Semi-circular
10	Oval
11	Row of seats

The position of the centre of a table is recorded in metres using attributes "X_metres" and "Y_metres". For backward compatibility you can also set the position of a table in pixels using attributes "X" and "Y", where there are 167 pixels to a metre. The use of pixel measurements is deprecated and may not be supported in future versions.

The table assigned attribute is a url encoded list of guests assigned to the seats of the table, e.g. an unencoded attribute "9,0,-1" means:

•	seat 0 contains the guest with index 9

•	seat 1 contains the guest with index 0

•	seat 2 contains no guest

<floorplan_shapes>..</floorplan_shapes>

This section contains details of the shapes added to the floor plan.

The meaning of the shape attribute is given below:

Shape attribute	Meaning
0	Circle
1	Ellipse
2	Square
3	Rectangle

<floorplan_text>.. </floorplan_text>

This section contains details of the shapes added to the floor plan.

This section contains details of all the guest proximities (who should sit next to who).

The affinity guest1 and guest2 attributes correspond to the 2 guests who the affinity is set for. If no affinity is set, neutral is assumed.

The meaning of the affinity value attribute is given below:

Value attribute	Meaning
0	Next to
1	Near to
2	Neutral
3	Not Next to
4	Not Near to

This section contains details of the current stationery design.

<selection_filters>..</selection_filters>

This section contains the indexes of guests and groups currently included in the Selected... list in The Guest Chart pane, Stationery pane and Export Data window.