Seat Allocator

Only the number of students is required. Select your classroom, enter enrollment, and click Allocate Seats - the tool spreads students evenly across the room, avoids broken seats, and produces a fresh random arrangement on every press - press Allocate Seats again at any time to generate a new assignment. Left-handed seats are assigned individually as needed.

Supported classrooms: BLOC 102 · BLOC 117 · BLOC 128 · BLOC 149 · BLOC 160 · BLOC 161 · BLOC 164 · BLOC 166 · BLOC 169 · BSBE 115 · CHEM 100 · HECC 105 · HECC 108 · HECC 110 · HECC 200 · HECC 203 · HECC 207 · HECC 209 · HELD 100 · HELD 107 · HELD 109 · HELD 111 · HELD 113 · HELD 200 · ILSB 1105 · RICH 114

How to paste seat assignments into a column of your Excel roster

After allocating, click ↓ Roster (TXT) above the seating chart to download allocated_seats.txt.

Each line of the file is a sequence number followed by a tab and the seat ID. The list is in the random order Allocate Seats picked them, so line k is the seat for student k in your roster.

1	F12
2	A3
3	K19
…
  1. Open allocated_seats.txt in any text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, VS Code), press Ctrl+A (or ⌘+A) to select all, then Ctrl+C (⌘+C) to copy.
  2. In Excel, click the cell next to your first student's name and paste with Ctrl+V (⌘+V). Excel splits at the tab automatically - the sequence numbers go into one column and the seat IDs into the next.
  3. Delete the sequence-number column. The remaining column is your seat assignments aligned with the roster.

Alternative (Excel for Windows): Data → From Text/CSV, choose the file, set the delimiter to Tab, then untick the first column in the preview before clicking Load.

🏷 Print seat stickers with student names (optional)

Paste or upload your roster, one student per line, in the same order used for the Roster (TXT) download above. Each label uses the same compact, three-line layout: first initial, middle initial, first 8 letters of the last name; detected course (for example MATH 140-510); and a small seat ID. For example: T. J. Doe / MATH 140-510 / SEAT G121. Course codes are detected from the roster even when they appear beside a name. Fill in Instructor below to squeeze your name onto that same course line, e.g. MATH 140-523-Jones. Add a 4th column with a seat ID (e.g. Cooper, Evan, MATH 151-501, D12) to pin that student to a literal seat, bypassing Allocate Seats for them - leave it off for students you want seated from the room's random pool as usual, or leave it off every line to ignore this entirely. All three lines fit within the actual printed label outline. Choose Print order below: Classroom Map prints by seat ID (A1, A2, …, then B1, B2, …) so graded tests can be filed and handed back by seat, or Alphabetical Order prints by last name instead - either way this is independent of roster order. Print at 100% / Actual Size without scaling or fitting to page.

Names are processed entirely in your browser to build the PDF - nothing is uploaded or saved anywhere.

· 📄 View full instructions (PDF)
If stickers are misaligned on your printed sheet, print one test page, measure the offset, and adjust these before re-printing.
Key: Empty Aisle Table Excluded Broken Available Allocated Left-handed Moveable chair
Cite this tool
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20981374
Kapita, S. (2026). Seat Allocator. Math Tools. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20981374