Seating Chart Maker

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on July 19, 2011

Anyone who's ever taught elementary or secondary school knows the great importance of seating charts; the arrangement of students in the classroom can make or break the teaching environment. Seating Chart Maker is a simple program that takes all of the hassle out of creating seating charts, even letting users account for troublemakers when making seating decisions. We have trouble imagining why any education wouldn't use this program.

Seating Chart Maker has an intuitive, wizard-style interface that walks users through each step of the process. First, enter your list of students. Next, select any combination of two or more students who can't be seated next to each other; you can create as many of these combinations as you need. Identify any students who need to be seated in the front row, and then create the layout of desks in your classroom. The program can automatically create grids with a specific number of rows, or users can manually arrange desks in groups or in any other configuration they desire. Finally, Seating Chart Maker generates a seating chart. This can be manually edited if necessary, and if you make any changes you can have the program check to make sure that you haven't violated any of your conditions for who can sit where. Once you're satisfied, simply save or print your chart. The program doesn't have a Help file, but we didn't mind; it's extremely easy to use. Seating Chart Maker isn't particularly attractive or fancy, but it does a great job of creating seating charts without any fuss.

Seating Chart Maker comes as a ZIP file and leaves a folder behind upon removal. We highly recommend this program.