For an alternative view of the table plan look at the 
Schematic
pane. It shows the same information in a different format. It doesn't
show the positioning of tables, but it does show the scoring
(if the show scores box is
checked). The higher the score, generally the better the layout. In
the example below (which may be different to yours) you can see that Jason
Jones has a total score of +4 made up of:
+5 for being next to Mrs Nicola
Jones with 
proximity
+2 for being on same table as Mr
William Jones with proximity
-5 for being on same table to Miss
Natasha Jones with 
proximity
+2 for being a male next to a female
= +4 total
Automatic layout tries to
find the highest scoring layout. You can run it as often as you like.
Each time it will start with the current layout and attempt to
improve it. If you don't like the changes made by the Automatic
layout did you can undo them by clicking on the 
Undo
button in the tool bar.
You can also drag guests between seats in the Schematic pane.
Click the 
button in the 
Floor
plan pane. Some additional buttons will be shown.
Holding down any of the 
buttons will draw lines between guests who have this proximity.
Holding down the 
button shows all proximities. The lines are coloured according to the
proximity, e.g. red for .
Holding down the 
button draws lines between guests who are not optimally placed, for
example guests with
proximity who are sat on the same table.
Depress the 
button to show guest genders (blue for male, pink for female).
Depress the 
button to show guest age (children are shown smaller).
Depress the 
button to show groups (different groups are shown in different
colours, up to 256 groups - the colours are selected automatically).
Depress the 
button to show guest and table VIP status (shown with stars).
Depress the 
button to show which guests are locked (a padlock is displayed for
locked guests).
Depress the
button to show any guests with special requirements (i.e. with an
entry in their Special req field).
Some of the above will be easier to see if you use simple (e.g. default ) colours in the Floor plan pane. Note that your layout is likely to be different to the one shown below.
Gender (colour), age (size) and proximity (lines) are displayed.
Using these buttons allows you to easily see whether moving guests to different seats could improve your table plan. Try dragging some of the guests to different seats. But keep an eye on the score in the Status bar to make sure that making some things better doesn't make other things worse.
You can also see a useful summary of your plan in the 
Statistics pane.
If you want to try to create a more realistic table plan, try loading
one of the example plans installed with PerfectTablePlan
(select File|
Open).
See also:
Next: 7. Print plan >>