Hi cityinday......
I doubt with 1000 diners, that you will be able to come up with a Graphical
Representation that would show each diner's name by their respective seat,
no matter how you got them there, in any printable size that would be
readable.....so, I would suggest you create a floorplan drawing, either in
Excel or wherever, just numbering each Table and each seat at each
table...for instance a particular diner's assignment might be "Table 3,
Chair 12", or "3-12, or something like that. It may even already exist.
Then in Excel you can have your list of names and in an adjacent column you
could put =RAND() and copy it down that column. Then you could sort on that
column and the names would sort with it and be in a "random" order. Then in
the next adjacent column you could insert the Table-Chair assignments. This
would give everyone a Chair......then re-sort on the Name column
alphabetically, so you can find an individual when seating them.....the fun
part would be to then have a thumbnail printout of the layout with the
individuals seat location specified, "Table 3, Chair 12", and then
highlighted in color on the thumbnail for easier location.
hth
Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3