Swiss-Manager

User's Guide

written by IA Tania Karali

June 2020
 Table of contents

Foreword............................................................................................................................................2

SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1: Downloading Swiss-Manager to your PC............................................................3

Chapter 2: Interface.........................................................................................................................4

SECTION 2: GETTING STARTED

Chapter 3: Setting up a new tournament....................................................................................5

Chapter 4: Entering players' data.................................................................................................7
Chapter 5: Importing rating lists................................................................................................10
Chapter 6: Pairing procedure......................................................................................................12
Chapter 7: Tie-breaks....................................................................................................................16
Chapter 8: Individual round-robin tournaments.....................................................................18
Chapter 9: Team tournaments.....................................................................................................20
Chapter 10: Printing lists.............................................................................................................25
Chapter 11: Uploading to [Link]...........................................................................28

SECTION 3: MOVING FURTHER

Chapter 12: Working with [Link].........................................................................30

Chapter 13: Age groups and other categories.........................................................................33
Chapter 14: Printing norms and certificates............................................................................36
Chapter 15: Uploading photos to [Link].............................................................38

APPENDICES

Appendix A: Hints and tips.........................................................................................................39

Appendix B: Using templates to create protocols and name cards...................................42
Appendix C: Importing/exporting data/TRF files.................................................................46
Appendix D: Money prizes.........................................................................................................50

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 Foreword

Dear colleagues,
Nowadays, Swiss-Manager is one of the leading pairing programs in the chess world.
Developed by Heinz Herzog, it is FIDE approved, has been translated to 24 languages to
date, is currently being used by more than 180 federations across the world and has
generated more than 600.000 tournament files.
Even though Swiss-Manager is very friendly to the user, it is often that arbiters are not
familiar with many of its aspects. This User's Guide addresses all arbiters who are either
new to the software or are still struggling with it. It follows step-by-step the procedure of
installing the software on your computer and setting up a new tournament, but also delves
into deeper waters, such as how to upload photos of the playing venue to [Link]
or calculate money prizes according to the Hort System.
I would like to thank Sotiris Logothetis, Mihalis Prevenios and Werner Stubenvoll for
teaching me everything I know on Swiss-Manager and for always being there to answer all
of my questions, even the simplest ones. Special thanks to Takis Nikolopoulos for trusting
me as a pairings' officer at the World Women's Rapid&Blitz Championships 2017 (Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia) and allowing me to assist the Technical Administrative Panel of the 43rd
Chess Olympiad (Batumi, Georgia) and observe their work. Much of my knowledge on the
program derives from working under pressure in both events.

IA Tania Karali
June 2020

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 SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1: Downloading Swiss-Manager to your PC

To download Swiss-Manager to your computer, open your internet browser and go to swiss-
[Link], select the tab “Download” on the top left of your screen, click on the newest version of
the program, open the downloaded .exe file and follow the installation process. When it is finished,
Swiss-Manager will be installed in the selected folder.

During the installation various folders and files are saved on your computer. Their use will be
explained in the following chapters.

When opening the newly installed program, you get the message “The program is installed as a
demo version. You can enter the installation code with the menu “Other \ Install...”.” So, click
on the “Other” tab and from the drop-down menu select “Install...”. Click on “Display conditions
for use”, then “Accept conditions for use”, enter your “Installation code” and click “OK”. Note
that for this step you need an internet connection.

On the developer's website ([Link]), you will find useful information on how to get
an installation code. Of course, you could try working with the Demo version for a while, but
its possibilities are limited. For example, it supports maximum 4 rounds of a tournament.

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This is the same procedure you need to follow should you ever need to change the installation code,
if, for example, you get an upgraded one or you need to work on a colleague arbiter's tournament
file. More about that in Chapter 11.

Please keep in mind that the developer updates the program regularly. It is highly advisable to
always download the latest version before starting a new tournament, by following this exact
procedure. For an alternative method, see Chapter 11.

Hint: Swiss-Manager only runs on Windows platform, not on Mac, tablets or mobiles. For a
way to overcome this obstacle see Appendix A: Hints and Tips

Chapter 2: Interface

The Swiss-Manager interface mainly consists of drop-down menus, icon shortcuts (hover your
cursor over an icon for an explanation) and keyboard shortcuts. You will find explanations to all
these in the relevant chapters in this User's Guide. For now, just that the menu “Round”
helps you navigate through the rounds of a tournament in progress.

Hint: Learn how to use the keyboard shortcuts (e.g. F6 for pairings, F7 to enter results, F5 for
final ranking, F9 to get the results' list etc.). It will save you a lot of time. You can find these
shortcuts next to each relevant item in the drop-down menus.

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 SECTION 2: GETTING STARTED

Chapter 3: Setting up a new tournament

The first drop-down menu under the tab “File” is similar to the relevant one of any other Windows
program. Here you can create a new file, open a previously saved one, save the current one, set the
printer preferences or, even, exit the program. To begin, click on File → New tournament... and
select the type of tournament you are going to create, the file name and where you are going to save
it on your computer. By default, the chosen folder is “Turniere” in the “Documents” folder, but
you can choose any other destination. After saving the file, select the tab “General” and you get the
following image:

In this chapter, we will deal with individual swiss tournaments ( option “Swiss System”). For
round-robin and team events, see Chapters 8 and 9.

In this dialog box you can enter the basic tournament data, such as the name (the same one will
appear on [Link], should you choose to upload the file), who the organiser is, a reference

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website, an email address, the time control, the names of tournament director and arbiters (for FIDE
rated tournaments you should also include their FIDE IDs), the country and location where the
event is taking place, the number of rounds, the starting and ending dates and whether the
tournament will be rated or not. Even if at the moment you do not have all the information you need
to enter, do not worry. You can always come back to this dialog box and fill in the missing data.

For an explanation of the “Age Groups” box, see Chapter 13.

Under the “Sorting/Display” heading you will find various options on how the players shall be
ranked for the purposes of the starting rank and pairings. Keep in mind that this option will be
inactive once the pairings of the first round are made, so be careful to choose correctly.

If you have run a similar tournament before and the file is saved on your computer, you can
try clicking on “Copy tournament data”. Select the relevant file, click “Open” and all the data
will be filled, including the tie-breaks. Now, all you need to adjust is the date and time.

Once you are done and click on “OK”, the “Enter players...” dialog box opens. If this is the first
time you are using Swiss-Manager, close this box and go to Chapter 5: Importing rating lists.
Plus, before you move any further, this could be a good moment to enter the tournament's schedule.
In the main window select the tab Input → Enter dates and times....

You may enter the date and time of each round one by one or fill one box and click “ Update”. In
this case, the data you entered will be copied to every box. (Very useful for rapid/blitz tournaments
or standard ones with a fixed schedule.)
Once you are done, click “OK” and then Input → Enter players....

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 Chapter 4: Entering players' data

The dialog box that opens up is divided in two parts. In the upper part, there will appear data from
the rating lists that you have downloaded that are relevant to your search and, in the lower part, the
players that you have already selected and entered in your tournament file. The following
procedures can be used both for entering players before the beginning of the tournament and for
players who wish to join once it has already started.

a) Players that are included in a rating list

For players that are included in a rating list that you have previously imported, there are two ways
to enter their data, by their name or ID number. You can enter their name or part of it in the box
“Name or code” at the lower right cornet of your screen and press [Enter]. The program will show
you all the relevant suggestions and you can select whom you are looking for. Double-click on the
player or highlight the name and press [Enter]. Note that if you write a player's name not using the
latin alphabet, the suggestions that will appear will only be from the national rating list.
Alternatively, if you know the player's national or FIDE ID number you can use this for your search
(especially useful when you are not sure how the name is spelled) in the same box. In this case the
number should be preceded by an “i”, for national IDs or an “f” for FIDE IDs. For example, if you
type “f1503014”, you will get the following results:

Hint: Notice the first column on the left, under the heading “List”? “FIDE” stands for the
FIDE standard rating list, showing Magnus Carlsen's elo rating in standard chess, “FIDR”
and “FIDB” stand for FIDE rapid and blitz respectively. Other abbreviations in this column
refer to national rating lists.

b) Players that are not included in a rating list

Players who are not included in a rating list can be added to the tournament file manually. In the
same dialog box, select “Input Manually” and fill in all the data that you need. You can navigate
through the boxes by using your keyboard or mouse.

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The number that appears next to “Cnt” at the lower right corner indicates how many players
have already been entered in the file.

c) Updating ratings and data

Different rating lists, include different kind of data. When running a tournament, you will frequently
need to combine players' data from two different rating lists, such as national and international elo
rating. To do so, first make sure that you have imported both lists that you need. Then, in the main
program window select the tab “Other” and in the drop-down menu click on “Update
ratings/data”.

This dialog box will update all the data of the players that you have already entered in the
tournament file (see Chapter 4). Select the second bullet (“key=FIDE-Identnumber”), the list
from which you wish to update and the appropriate fields. For example, if you have entered the
players using your national rating list, you should now select the FIDE rating list. (It is advisable to
do it in this order, especially if your national rating list is not in the latin alphabet.) If you check the

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box “Name”, the players' names will be converted to the equivalent ones that are registered in
FIDE, the box “Rating international” will add the respective elo rating etc. Feel free to click on
“Start test” and experiment with the various choices. Swiss-Manager will give you a preview of the
updating it is going to make, but will not move on to any changes yet. When you are certain about
what you need, select “Start update”, wait a few seconds, close the .txt file that appears and click
“Close”. (Even if you do not wish to set the players' names in latin alphabet, it is a good practice to
do the test with the box “Name” checked. This way you can verify that the FIDE ID corresponds to
the correct player. Then, uncheck the box and update.)

If you skip clicking “Start update” and go straight to “Close”, the dialog box will close
without updating the list, so be careful.

Sometimes you will notice that the .txt file mentions that one or more players were not found in the
rating list. This may occur, if the FIDE ID of those players is not included in the national list. In this
case, you need to add it manually (see below how to do this). If the player does not have a FIDE ID,
you could either ask your rating officer to issue one or update the rest of the data manually.

d) Managing players' data

After you have entered the players, you may need to manage their data, for example, fill in some
missing information. Select Input → Update players... to get a window similar to the previous
one. Here you cannot enter new players, but you can see all the data full screen. Again, you can
navigate through the boxes by using your keyboard or mouse. If you click on any heading, the
players will be sorted according to that column. This function can be very useful when you need to
check who is the youngest or the oldest player of a tournament to award special prizes, when you
need to make statistics etc. You can also delete players who have registered, but never showed up.

Never delete a player who has been paired against another player at least once, even if they
forfeited their game!

In the column “Type” players are sorted according to their age group. In the column “Group” you
can add a short note of your choice (it is best to use the latin alphabet) to divide them in whatever
categories you need (see Chapter 13 about how to take advantage of these features).

Whenever you are entering new players in the tournament file, before the first round or later,
before moving on to making the pairings of the next round, you need to resort the starting
rank. If you miss this step, the new players will be added at the bottom of the rank, resulting
in wrong pairings. To resort, select Input → Resort starting rank list and click “Yes”.

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 Chapter 5: Importing rating lists

A rating list is basically a database that contains all the useful information on the participants that
you need to run the tournament, such as name, date of birth, rating, club, K factor etc. There are two
types of rating lists, those generated by FIDE (three in total, for standard, rapid and blitz play) and
those generated by national federations. Note that to download any of them, you need an internet
connection.

If you get an error message during any of the following steps, see Appendix A: Hints and Tips
for an alternative method.

a) Importing a FIDE rating list

To import a FIDE rating list, in the main Swiss-Manager window select “Rating Lists” and from
the drop-down menu “Update FIDE rating list” and choose the one you need.

In the window that opens up, go to field “3) Data validity” enter a short note of the time period that
the list is valid for (e.g. Jun 2020) and click on “Start import”. After a few seconds, a .txt file
appears. Close the .txt file and click on “OK”.

If you skip clicking “Start import” and go straight to “OK”, the dialog box will close without
importing the list, so be careful.

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 b) Importing a national rating list

To begin, in the main Swiss-Manager window select “Rating Lists” and check if your federation is
listed in the drop-down menu. If it is, then the procedure you should follow is identical to
downloading a FIDE rating list.
If your federation does not appear in the menu, you need to download the list manually. First of all,
check with your federation for a link that you can use and ask if the list comes in a Unicode version.
The rating officer of your federation or any arbiter in your country who has done this before should
be able to answer both questions. Then, in the main Swiss-Manager window select “Rating Lists”
and from the drop-down menu “Import rating lists” and select the tab “Import Rating lists”.

In the dialog box that opens up, check the box on the upper left corner for Unicode version, if
needed. At the drop-down menu “1) Select rating list” select “NAT – national rating list” (you
may need to scroll up to find it) or “ADD1 Additional Rating List” if you have selected Unicode.
Delete the contents of the box “2) Select rating list import file for FIDE, AUT, GER the URL”
and copy-paste there the link that your rating officer gave you. Enter a short note of the time period
that the list is valid for (e.g. Jun 2020) and click on “Start import”. After a couple of seconds, a .txt
file appears. Close the .txt file and click on “OK”.

If you skip clicking “Start import” and go straight to “OK”, the dialog box will close without
importing the list, so be careful.

c) Managing rating lists

By selecting Rating Lists → Import rating lists, you can see the lists that have been downloaded
to your computer, the date that each one was saved and the number of players that are registered in
it. Note that any new list replaces the relevant older one, for example, the FIDE standard rating list
of June 2020 replaces the previous FIDE standard rating list that you had imported etc. In this
dialog box you can also delete a list (not advisable and, actually, not necessary) or uncheck a list
that you don't wish to use when entering players (also not advisable).

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 Chapter 6: Pairing procedure

Remember: Swiss-Manager is a very useful tool, but the arbiter should always be able to
check the pairings manually. If somebody asks you why player X is paired against player Y or
why they are playing with the black pieces twice in a row, “this is how the program did it” is
not a proper answer!

a) Computer pairings

When you have finished entering the players, updating their data from another rating list and have
sorted the starting rank, in the main program window select Pairings → Computer pairings. If
you have drawn lots for the colour of the first ranked player, you may choose the appropriate bullet.
Otherwise, do nothing and click “Start” and “OK”.

b) Entering results

In order to enter the results of the games, select Input → Enter results....
Select a pair and click on the respective result. If you want to go faster, try using your keyboard. “1”
is for “1:0”, “2” for “1/2-1/2”, “3” for “0:1”, “4” for “1F:0F”, “5” for “0F:1F”, “6” for “0F:0F”
and “0” to skip a line. If you make a mistake, you can either select the pair and set another result or
click on “Empty” for no result. If you have entered some of the results and want to see what
remains, select “Missing”. The option “All” shows all of the pairs once again.
You can use the options “Rd-1” and “Rd+1” to navigate through the rounds, if, for example, you
need to correct an old result. Keep in mind, though, that for FIDE rated tournaments there are
certain restrictions (see FIDE Handbook C.04.2/D.8).

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When you are finished, click “End” to exit this window.

c) Manual pairings

If, for any reason, you need to alter the pairings that are produced by the software, there are two
ways to do this, depending on whether you have already made them.

Note: Make sure that the box “Players/Teams can always be paired manually” (Set up
tournament... window, tab other) is checked.

i) If you need to make changes after you have made the pairings (e.g. a new player shows up and
you need to pair them with the player who has a bye), select Pairings → Set new player.... In the
window that opens up you will see a list of the pairings that have been made and, on the left, the
players that have not been paired for this round.

Select two players from the left column and you will get a suggestion for the colours they will play,
which is related to the pairings of all the other players and their Seed No., and the alternative. Click
“pair” next to the option that you prefer. You can also select a player and assign them a bye (“set
bye”), which can also be done by Pairings → Give player bye, in the main window. To change the

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colours of a pair that has already been set, select the pair and then click “change colour”. If you
click “Remove pairing”, the two players will be added to those on the left column. You can also
change the order of the pairs by selecting a pair and then clicking “row+1” or “row-1”.

ii) If you want to set some pairs in advance, before pairing the rest of the players, then select
Pairings → Manual pairings.... The main difference with the previous window is that nobody has
been paired yet, so they all appear on the left column. All the other functions remain the same.

When you are done with changes, select Input → Resort pairing list and click “Yes”.

Pairings that have been manually altered can be identified by an asterisc that appears next to each
of them, when selecting Lists → Pairings, in the main program window.

d) Excluding players

If you need to exclude a player from one or more rounds, select Pairings → Exclude player... and
click on their name. In the dialog box that pops up, deselect the rounds that the player should not be
paired for or select “Exclude all remaining rounds” and click “OK”.

If the tournament allows half-point byes for players who notify that they want to be excluded
from a round in advance, then select Input → Set up tournament..., go to the tab “Other”
and tick the box “Enter results for excluded players/teams [0 as default]”. Then, follow the
above step to exclude the player and select Input → Enter results... Those who have
withdrawn from the tournament will also appear on the list. Input the appropriate result for
each one.

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If you want to restore a player for a round that they have previously been excluded from, you can
follow the same steps. Alternatively, select Pairings → Reactivate player... and select their name.

In case you make the computer pairings and, then, need to go back and exclude or reactivate a
player, you will notice that the respective option is now inactive. To overcome this, in the main
program window click on “Round”, select the round that has just ended (or “0” if the tournament
has not started yet), select Pairings → Computer pairings..., “Yes” and “Yes”. Keep this window
open and select Pairings → Exclude player..., which is now an active option.

e) Pairings checklist

As was mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, an arbiter should always be able to check that
the pairings have been made correctly. The software offers all the information needed on the
pairings of the previous rounds, colour history, floats, exclusions etc. To access the complete list, in
the main program window select Lists → Players checklist. In the window that opens up the player
are sorted according to the interim ranking of the round that has just ended. In the column labelled
“SNo.” you can see their Seed Number, followed by their name and current number of points. Scroll
down to see the full legend.

In the last column are listed each player's opponents from the previous rounds in numerical
order, not order of rounds. Be careful as they are listed according to their rank number (first
column), not Seed No.

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 Chapter 7: Tie-breaks

To enter the tie-breaks of the tournament, in the main program window select Input → Set up
tournament... → tab Tie-breaks.

In the top half of the window that opens up appear all the tie-breaks that the software offers. In the
bottom half appear the tie-breaks that are currently selected by order of priority (whenever you start
working on a new tournament file, Swiss-Manager suggests some tie-breaks that you can use; you
can keep them as they are, customise them or delete them and start over).

To select a tie-break, click on it on the top half of the screen. Some tie-breaks, such as Buchholz,
are customisable and a new window will pop-up, where you can make the appropriate settings.

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When you are done, the tie-break will appear at the bottom half of the screen. Those that have
variables will still appear on the top half, so you can select them again, while the others will not. So,
if, for example, you need to enter “Buchholz” and “Buchholz cut-1”, you should select the tie-break
twice, but with different parameters.
You can click on an already selected tie-break to remove it, change its parameters or its order of
priority.
If you are running a tournament that uses a tie-break that is not included in the list (e.g. drawing of
lots), you can select the “Manually input in field rankcorr. in player dialog [5]” tie-break. Then,
close this window, select Input → Update players... and in the column “rankcorr” set the order of
the players who tied, e.g. “1” for the 1st one, “2” for the 2nd etc.
Similarly, you can use use the tie-breaks “Playoff points [43]” and “Points (game points +
qualifying points) [42]” and add the extra points in the column “PtsAdd” (Input → Update
players...).

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 Chapter 8: Individual round-robin tournaments

Files for round-robin tournaments can be created by following the process described in the previous
chapter and selecting “Round robin” instead of “Swiss System”.

Another way to do this is by converting a swiss tournament file to a round-robin one,

especially helpful if some players have already been registered. In this case, in the main
program window select Other → Change type of tournament, click “Yes” and “Yes”. (This
also works in the opposite direction.)

In a round-robin tournament the players' starting rank is random. Enter the players' data, as
described in the previous chapters, and select Pairings → Computer pairings....

Note: In a round-robin tournament you do not need to enter the number of the rounds in the

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Tournament Dialog. It will be automatically defined by the number of participants.

Select “Sorting” according to “How players were entered”, if you have drawn lots, or select the
second option and let Swiss-Manager do that for you. You can also modify the order in which the
players are entered to match the drawing. Select Input → Update players... and check the box
“Show in Start Rank order” at the bottom of the screen. Use the buttons “No-1” and “No+1” to
make the appropriate changes. When you are done, go back to Pairings → Computer pairings...
and click “OK”. Swiss-Manager instantly produces the pairings of all rounds and all you need to do
now is enter the results.

If, for any reason, you need to modify the pairings that are produced automatically, try
selecting “Manual settings” instead of “Standard round robin”.

For double or above round-robin tournaments, in the “Set up tournament...” window enter the
number of replays in the appropriate box. When you select Pairings → Computer pairings..., a
new option will appear, where you can choose the order of rounds.

Some minor differences with swiss tournaments can be found in the tie-breaks tab. For example, in
a round-robin tournament Buchholz makes no sense. Instead, the Koya system has been added to
the list.

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 Chapter 9: Team tournaments

To create a tournament file for a team event, first go to File → New tournament... and select
“Swiss System for Teams” or “Round Robin for Teams”.

As with individual swiss vs round-robin events, the differences on handling the files are
minor, concerning mostly the pairing procedure and the tie-breaks. This chapter mainly
focuses on swiss team tournaments.

The usual “Set up tournament...” window opens up, where the extra data that you need to enter is
the number of boards, how the pairings will be made, the Match points and Game points for the
team that receives a bye and the colour of the first board of the “home team”.

Next, click on the “tie-breaks” tab to make the appropriate selections.

Important: If the pairings and ranking of the tournament depend on Match points, then you
need to set “Match Points [2 for wins, 1 for Draws, 0 for Losses] [13]” as the first tie-break
that will be used. The software does not consider it by default!

Then, select the tab “General” and click “OK”.

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 a) Entering teams

The “Teams Dialog” window opens up, where you can enter the names of the teams that participate
in the tournament (you can also access it by selecting Input → Enter teams...). Enter the teams in
the first column, which is labelled “Team”. If you exit this window and enter again, the column
labelled “Team short form” will have also been filled in to match the first one. This is how the
teams will appear on the various lists.

If, after exiting this window, you need to re-open it and make changes to the teams' names
that have already been entered, make sure that you also adjust the second column manually.
It will not be done automatically.

b) Entering players

As soon as you are done entering the teams and click “OK”, the “Enter New Players from Rating
List” window opens up, which can also be accessed by Input → Enter players.... In this window
you can enter the players from a rating list or manually, exactly as described in Chapter 4. There are
two main differences, though:
First, before you enter a player, you need to select their respective team from the bullets on the top
right corner of the screen. Failing to do that, will add the players to the total pool, but will not
assign them to a specific team. In that case, you will need to delete and re-enter them.

The second difference is that the order in which the players are entered within each team
corresponds to the board sequence. To change this order, you can make the appropriate adjustments
in the column “BNo”.

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 c) Sorting teams

There are various options on how to set the teams' starting rank. By default, they are sorted
alphabetically. To sort them manually, click on a team in the “Team Dialog” window and move it
up or down by using the buttons “No-1” or “No+1”. You can even opt to set the starting rank to
“Random”.
Another option is by rating average of selected players (for example, 4 players out of 5). In the
“Enter players” window, enter an “X” (in latin alphabet) in the column labelled “Group” for each
player that will be accounted for the average. Next, select Input → Set up tournament... → tab
Other and select the “Players who have an x in the field “group”” bullet.

Note: the average of the players' rating will be rounded to the closest integral number. For
ties, you need to calculate the average manually.

d) Entering results

The pairing procedure for team events is identical to that of individual tournaments, even to the
point of excluding teams or setting pairs manually. However, unlikely to individual tournaments,
you now need to enter two kind of results: for the whole team and per board.

The procedure that follows is not unique, but it is the safest one for not experienced users.

Select Input → Enter results....

Pay attention to the switch at the bottom left corner of your screen, “Enter results for
Players/Teams”. Depending on its position, the results will vary.

Set the switch to “Teams”. Enter the result of the whole team for each pair. Note that you only need
to enter the result for the “home” team and the other one will be filled in automatically. If, for any
reason, you need to change the result of the second team, select the bullet “Team 2”. For forfeits,
set the result (for example, 4-0) and then click on “Forfeit” (4-0 now changes to 4F:0F). You can

22
also navigate through rounds, delete a wrong entered result or change the colours of a pair.

Once you are done, you can proceed with the pairings for the next round (click “OK” and then
Pairings → Computer pairings...) or set the results per board. For the latter choice, set the switch
to “Players”.

By default, the team composition for each round is set to the fixed board order. If there are
reserve players, it is best to delete it, once you have made the pairings, but before uploading
them to [Link], by selecting Input → Enter results..., setting the switch to
“Players” and clicking “Delete”.

Assuming that you deleted the fixed board order, you will get blanks, where the players' names
should be. Click on “Pairings” at the bottom right corner of the screen. Select a pair of teams and
on the right you will see a list of the players that have been registered to play with the “home” team
(Team 1) or the opponents, if you click on “Team 2”. If a player is not listed but should be, go to
Input → Enter players... and add their data as described previously in this chapter.
Click on a player and their name will appear on the space that indicates the first player of the
“home” team. Continue with the other boards and proceed to setting the team composition of Team
2. To make changes to the players you have already entered (meaning their board order, not data;
data can only be changed in the “Update players...” dialog), select a name and click “Remove” or
“Move up player”, in which case the player will be removed and replaced all the following ones
will be moved up one board. You can even click “Remove all” and start over.

23
Once you are done, click “OK”. Set the results per board and notice the notification at the upper
part of the screen that changes to “OK”, signaling that the board results match the team totals.

If the tournament regulations state that for each player who loses by forfeit, the team result will be
reduced by a half point, you can check the relevant box at the “Set up tournament...” window, tab
“Other”.
Once you have entered all the results per board, upload the tournament file (check Chapter 11), if
you wish, with the switch still set to “Players” (if you do not have all of the individual results, you
can always upload with the switch set to “Teams”). This way the individual board results will
appear on [Link], as well as the team totals. Finally, re-open this window, set the switch
to “Teams” and proceed with the pairings of the next round.

Once again, it might seem confusing at first, but you will get used to it. As a rule of thumb,
when making the pairings the switch should be set to “Teams”. When uploading, it is best to
be set to “Players”, but only if you have entered all of the individual results.

Note: To run a Scheveningen tournament, create a “Round Robin for Teams” file, enter the two
teams and the players and select “Scheveningen tournament” as a pairing option. Swiss-Manager
will output the board pairings per round, which you can modify as described before.

24
 Chapter 10: Printing lists

Most printable lists can be found in the drop-down menus labelled “Reports” and “Lists”. These
could vary from the starting or alphabetical rank, pairings or results and individual data of a player
to crosstables, statistics and much more. (In the drop-down menu “Lists” you may notice that
“Alphabetical”, “Starting rank” and “Standings” appear both at the top and bottom. Select the
top ones to print the data in one column and the bottom ones to print in two columns.) The main
functions, however, remain the same. At the bottom of each printable screen these choices appear:

Clicking on “Excel” will produce an .xls file (if you prefer an .xlsx format, in the main program
window select Other → Options... and turn the switch to “File-Extension xlsx”), which you can
save on your computer and modify as you wish.
By clicking on “Player Info” (or “Team Info”), each player's (or team's) individual information
will be displayed in a printable form. (An alternative way to do this is by selecting Reports →
Players (or Teams), in the main program window.)
Clicking “Print” will immediately print the list without saving it in a separate file.

Troubleshooting:
In case you have connected a functioning printer to your computer, but cannot get it to work
when clicking “Print”, select File → Printer setup... and make sure it appears as the selected
one (especially if you changed printers after the tournament file was created).

The printing format of the list, from the size of letters and numbers to the data that will be included,
can be highly customised by clicking on “Print menu”.

25
This window may seem confusing, at first sight. On the top left you can adjust the character size
and lines that appear per page. Select “Optimal” if you want the text to fill the whole page with
minimum space left or experiment with the other options. On the top right, you can change the font
and various effects. You can always click “Default settings” at the bottom right of the screen to
start over.
You can also choose which lines you want to print. If, for example, you are printing the pairings' list
of a tournament, you can give each arbiter a list containing only the boards that they are in charge
of. To do so, enter the relevant numbers in the “From” and “To” boxes under the heading
“Players/lines” on the bottom right of the screen.

Clicking on the tab “Columns” will get you a deactivated table with the heading “Standard list”.
The idea here is that in each list you can choose what kind of data you want to appear and you can
save these settings for later use. For example, for youth tournaments you may want to display the
age group of each participant and for adult tournaments their club.
Whereas the “Standard list” cannot be modified, you can create and save your own lists. In the tab
“General” select “Define new list”, at the bottom of the screen, and click “Yes”. Set a name for
your list on the top field.
Depending on the type of list you are about to print, different data will appear.

26
This data can be found under the column headed “fieldname”. Next to each feature you can modify
the heading under which it will be printed (“in list”), whether it will appear or not (column “show”,
input “Y” or “N” in latin alphabet), its alignment (column “format”, input “l”, “c” or “r”) etc. You
can even change the order of appearance, by clicking on “Row-1”/“Row+1”. When you are done,
switch to the tab “General”. Your newly defined list will appear at the top of the window and you
can access it whenever you need it.

Before you print anything, you can click on “Print Preview” to see if you are satisfied with
the settings. Once you are done, click “Print”.

Keep in mind: When you are printing an interim ranking, make sure that you do it just after
the end of the round (or go back to it). If you print the ranking after making the pairings of
the next round, Swiss-Manager will suppose that all the results of the next round were 0-0,
thus, affecting the tie-breaks.

If you need to print several lists at once, for example, results and ranking, try the option Output →
Output several lists.

27
 Chapter 11: Uploading to [Link]

In the drop-down menu “Internet” you can find everything you need to upload your tournament to
the internet, specifically to [Link], which is a website that is directly connected to Swiss-
Manager.

The first two options will take you to the respective websites. The option “Upload tournament to
[Link]” will upload your tournament. The first time you do this for a file, you will get a
message mentioning its database key. The database key is like an ID, a unique number that
identifies the file and appears on the tournament's URL on [Link]. If, for example, a
file's database key is 527412, then the respective URL would be [Link]
[Link]/[Link]?lan=1

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“UPLOAD OK” signals that the upload has been completed. If you do not get this message, you
may need to check your internet connection or your installation code (check the FAQ on swiss-
[Link] for more info on that).

A database key is assigned to a file the first time it is uploaded to the internet. To see the key,
go to Input → Set up tournament..., tab “Other”.

Once a file is uploaded to [Link], it can be downloaded as well, by going to the

tournament page and selecting “Swiss-Manager tournamentfile”.
Other options in this menu can take you to the tournament's page on [Link], open up the
customisation page (see Chapter 12) or allow you to download the latest update of Swiss-Manager
without opening your browser.

Pay special attention to the option “Restrict tournament upload to file creator” and make
sure it remains checked. Anybody can download your file from [Link] and make
changes to it. If this option is checked, they cannot upload it back up, unless they have your
password. Respectively, if you need to make changes to a file that someone else has created,
you will need their password.

You may have noticed that in the “Enter results...” window there is an option to upload to chess-
[Link]. This option does not upload the whole tournament file, just the interim results of a
round that has not been completed. Thus, it is the best practice to follow while there are still games
in progress. (In this case, uploading the whole file would display a false ranking on chess-
[Link], which might confuse the participants.)

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 SECTION 3: MOVING FURTHER

Chapter 12: Working with [Link]

As was mentioned in the previous chapter, [Link] is the website where all tournament
files produced by Swiss-Manager are uploaded. To date, it contains more than 500.000 files from all
around the world, from club tournaments to Continental Championships and Chess Olympiads.

a) General interface

When visiting the website, you will notice that the homepage consists of various sections. On top
you can find tools to search for current or past tournaments (more info below), in the middle there
are shortcuts to every federation that is using Swiss-Manager, followed by a list of the 50
tournaments that were last uploaded. By clicking on a federation, a similar page opens up, where
the 50 tournaments that were last uploaded by that specific federation appear.

There are also some small tabs that you can use to get different language versions of the website or
to adjust the font size.

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 b) Searching for a tournament

With so many tournament files being generated by Swiss-Manager every day, chances are that the
one you are looking for will not appear on the list of the 50 most recent ones. Luckily, there are two
useful tools that you can use:

i) On the homepage and the federation pages you can find a drop-down menu with various options
that will broaden the list.

ii) If you still cannot find what you are looking for, try the searching tools on the homepage, that
can also be accessed by any other page by clicking on the tab “Tournament-Database”. Depending
on the option you choose, you can look for specific tournaments, for example, all the round-robin
events organised by a federation during a time period, the tournaments where a specific player
participated or games that have been uploaded to the website.

31
 c) Customising your tournament

Apart from being a very wide tournament database, [Link] also gives the users the
ability to customise the appearance of the tournament files they upload by choosing what kind of
data will be shown.
To access this tool, first, upload your tournament file to the website, as described in the previous
chapter and, then, select Internet → Customize lists at [Link]. A page in your browser
will open up, looking like this (this page can only be accessed by the “creator” of the file):

Depending on the type of tournament file you are working on (individual/team, swiss/round-robin),
some of the options might not be available. A ticked box indicates that the selected feature will
appear on the uploaded file. Spend some time experimenting with this page until you reach a
desired result. For any change to take effect, you need to click on “Save” on the top of the screen.
You can even delete your tournament file, if you wish.

An option that you may want to consider is unticking the box “Rtg” and ticking both boxes
“Rtg. nat.” and “Rtg. Int.”. The reason is that the box “Rtg” will show a player's highest elo
rating, whether it is the national or international one and, therefore, it might seem that the
starting list has not been sorted properly.

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 Chapter 13: Age groups and other categories

In most tournaments there are special prizes for different age or rating categories. Using Swiss-
Manager you can see at first glance who are the winners of each one both if the tournament has
ended and if it is still running. You can even divide a tournament file to several sub-files, one for
each category.

a) Age groups

Set the age groups that are mentioned in the tournament's regulations in the tournament dialog
window (Input → Set up tournament...) in the box “Age groups”. You will notice that some have
been already entered, but you can delete them and enter your own. Use the prefix “U” for youth
categories and “S” for seniors and separate everything by commas (“,”). So, for example, for a
tournament that gives special prizes to players under 12, under 16 and above 50 you should write
“U12, U16, S50” (groups should be entered in ascending order).

Before you exit this window, make sure that the “Cutoff Date” is set to be the 1st of January of the
year the tournament is running, so that Swiss-Manager can calculate the correct age for each player.
(It will usually be set correctly apart from the case where you used “Copy tournament data” to
copy data from a tournament of a previous year.)

Note: If you forget to set the age groups before you enter the players or if you want to change
them later, you should follow the above step, but also go to the main program window and
select Other → Options.... Select the tab “Input Players” and click “Update” under
“Automatic type assignment”.

33
Now, as you enter the players, you will notice that the column “Type” is filled with the relevant
sign of the age groups you have set for those who fulfil the criteria.
To see the winners of each age group select Lists → Category prizes and click “OK”. You can also
do this during the tournament after entering the round results. To set how many players shall appear
in each category, before clicking “OK” enter the number in the box “Lines per Category”.

b) Other kind of categories

In the window mentioned above you can also set rating categories. Just enter the limits of each
category and, when you click “OK”, you will see the winners.

Other special prizes that you may come across are for board performance in team tournaments. In
the main program window go to Lists → Player performance list or Board list. In the window
that opens up set the minimum number of games a player needs to have played to be in the list and
the other parameters. Set the criteria according to which you wish the sorting to be made and click
“OK”.

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 c) Dividing a tournament file to sub-files

Many tournaments are divided into groups, according to age or elo rating. Think of a tournament
that is divided into two groups (or several, the technique is the same), one for players above a
specific rating and one for those who are below, with all the other data (schedule, tie-breaks,
officials etc) remaining the same. The fastest way to create files for these groups is to create one
file, enter all the players and divide the file into sub-files, one for each group. In order to do that,
after entering a player or all of them, select Input → Update players... and in the column “Group”
set a short description of the group they belong to, preferably using the latin alphabet (for age
groups this is not needed, the column “Type” provides what you need). Make sure that you have
added this note for every participant.
Once every player has been entered and assigned to an age or other kind of group, select Other →
Split tournament and make your choice. The sub-files will be created and saved in the same
location where the original is saved. Note that the original still remains there.

Before dividing the tournament file, make absolutely sure that the data according to which
the division will happen (type or group) has been entered for every participant. Players who
are left without a note, will be left out of the sub-files. Check the sum of participants of the
sub-groups to verify it matches the original number.

35
 Chapter 14: Printing norms and certificates

Additionally to the lists and statistics that include data for all the participants (see Chapter 10), you
can print norms and certificates for a specific player or arbiter.

a) Individual results

To print an official certificate containing a player's individual results, select Reports → Players
and click on the name of the player. A window opens up with the player's data, tie-breaks and
results per round. At the bottom of the screen you will find the usual printing options.

b) Title norms

First, select Reports → FIDE title info and make sure that the box “Organizer's Federation” is
filled. (Hint: This window can also be accessed by Input → Set up tournament..., tab “FIDE
Title”.)

By clicking on “Output FIDE Title Norm List” a list of every player who scored a new title norm
appears including the player's performance, opponents etc. The penultimate column shows for
which title a norm was achieved and the indication “New” is the actual confirmation.

36
To check whether a player achieved a norm, select “FIDE Title Norm Check for a Player” and
click on their name. A similar window will open up, where in the last column either a confirmation
(“New”) will appear or an explanation of why a norm was not achieved, with a reference to the
relevant article of the title regulations. To print certificates for the players who succeeded, select
“Create FIDE Title Excel File” and, also, “FIDE Tournament report – IT3” form the “Reports”
drop-down menu.

Before the last round of a tournament, players may ask you what is a sufficient result for
them to achieve a norm. In order to do that, after you have made the pairings of the last
round, enter a result for whoever is asking and select “FIDE Title Norm Check for a Player”.
Experiment with all three possible results (1, 1/2, 0).

It is always good practice to check whether a player achieved a norm manually. Not only you
will be 100% sure, but also you will be more confident to answer the player's questions.

c) Arbiter certificates

To print certificates for the arbiters of the tournament click on “Reports” and from the drop-down
menu select “FIDE Tournament report – IT3”, “FA Norm Report – FA1” or “IA Norm Report
– IA1” and fill in the appropriate data in the excel files that are generated. These files are saved on
your computer in the Documents\SwissManagerUniCode\Excel folder.

37
 Chapter 15: Uploading pictures to [Link]

In order to upload pictures, such as photos of the games and ceremonies or even a scan of the
regulations, first, upload your tournament. Then, select Internet → Upload pictures to Chess-
[Link].

Click on “Select pictures” and browse your computer to choose what you wish to upload. If you
choose a wrong file, then click on “Clear listbox” and start over.

Note: If you close this window and exit the program before uploading the pictures, when you
re-open it, you will need to select them again.

Once you are done, write the name of the provider of the pictures, confirm that you have permission
to publish them and click “Upload pictures on [Link] via FTP”.

Click on “Customize pictures on [Link]” to add a short description for each one,
change orientation, hide or delete them. Finally, upload the tournament file once again and go to its
page on [Link]. Click on “Show Photo Gallery” to see the result.

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 Appendix A: Hints and tips

The previous sections cover the vast majority of the software's functions that an arbiter needs to
know to run a tournament. In this appendix and the ones that follow you can find useful hints and
tips that take the user's experience to the next level.

 Do you need to communicate some extra info to the players? For example, a change in the
tournament schedule or the result of drawing of lots? You can add your comments in a box
that will appear on the tournament page on chess-results. In order to do this, go to Input →
Set up tournament... → General and write your comments in the “Remarks” box,
preceded by the symbol #

 To set a player on a “fixed board”, in the main program window select Input → Update
players... and in the column BNoPair enter the number of the board where they will be
assigned to.

 Unfortunately, Swiss-Manager is not a bug-free program. One of the most common bugs
may appear when you are trying to download a new FIDE rating list. If you get an error
message while doing that, try the following: go to
[Link]
and download the list to your computer. Then on Swiss-Manager go to Rating Lists →
Import Rating Lists and select the tab “Import Rating lists”. Press the “Select” button
and choose the file that you saved previously. Then, as usual, “Start import” and “OK”.
(Note: the developer updates the program regularly. Always check that you have installed
the latest version.)

 Have you noticed the “.bak” files that have been created and saved in the same folder with
your tournament files? These are backup files created by default by Swiss-Manager every
time you save your file or make the pairings of the next round. If you need to use one of
them, rename it so that the extension is “.TUNx”, “.TUMx”, “.TURx” or “.TUTx” to match
your main file and open it with Swiss-Manager. To customise how many backup files can be
created, in the main program window select Other → Options...

 Let's suppose you are running a rapid tournament (same applies to blitz). According to the
FIDE rules, for the participants that do not have a rating in rapid chess, you should enter
their rating in standard chess. The easiest and fastest way to do this is to enter everyone by
using the FIDE Rating List. When you are done, you can follow the procedure of “Update
Ratings/Data” from the FIDE Rapid Rating List. This way, for those who have a rating in
rapid, it will substitute the standard one, whereas the others will be left intact.

 Do you need to go to a tournament but cannot bring a laptop with you? Unfortunately, the
Swiss-Manager engine does not run on mobiles or tablets (not yet at least). However, you

39
 can always use a software like Teamviewer on your portable device to connect to a remote
computer and enjoy the program's benefits. (Not advisable for the first round, when you may
need to input a lot of data, players' lists etc)

 If you need to share the file of a running tournament by email, USB (e.g. with another
colleague arbiter) or if you are downloading it from [Link], always check that the
database key of the tournament is the correct one and has not turned to 0. In that case, at the
moment of the next upload, the file will be considered as a new tournament, get a new
database key and appear as a double entry on [Link], which may bring confusion
to the participants. You can see the database key at Input → Set up tournament... →
Other.

 When you are making the pairings for a tournament, always use the JaVaFo engine
checkbox. If you don't, you might actually get wrong pairings. A common example: When
using the JaVaFo engine, players who have won or lost a game by forfeit are considered to
be downfloaters. However, when using the Swiss-Manager engine, they are not, thus
resulting in different pairings, which contradict the official rules of the Dutch system.

 You can use Swiss-Manager to create a file for a simultaneous tournament. Follow the usual
procedure of creating a new round-robin tournament file and enter the players, starting with
the master. Select Pairings → Computer pairings... and choose the option “Simultaneous
tournament”.

 Let's suppose you are running a tournament where players from the same club (or any kind
of group) should not be paired against each other. Go to the players dialog (Input →
Update players...) and in the column “CNo” (club number) add numbers to indicate who
are in the same club (or group). For, example, enter “1” for all the players who are members
of one club (or group), “2” for those of another one etc. Then, in the pairings window tick
the box “Protect round (same club-number)”. You can untick it at any stage of the
tournament the restrictions are raised or in case no valid pairing can be found. (If you also
want to print some group info at the end, try creating a file using the “Swiss System (with
team Tie-Break)” option)

 Feel free to experiment with the program and the various options as much as you like! It is
the only way to familiarise yourself with them. The only thing that could go totally wrong is
deleting the tournament file by mistake. Anything else can be corrected.

These notes are complementary to the FAQ written by the software developer, mr. Heinz Herzog,
which you can find either on [Link] or on [Link]
There you can find many useful guidelines, such as how to link different groups of the same
tournament on [Link], how to upload games, how to register online etc. See the next
page for the full list and links to each question.

40
 Swiss-Manager FAQ

1 How to import the national ratinglist?

2 Can I upload the games to [Link]?

3 What is to do if a player retires during a round robin tournament?

4 Buchholz-Tie-Break Calculation

5 Entering Results for not paired players in a Single-Swiss System

6 Where can I find the Tie-Break 3 points for win, 1 point for a draw, 0 for loss?

7 On the ranking-list only the first Tie-Break is printed, on the screen all Tie-Breaks are shown.

8 Who is the "creator" of the Swiss-Manager file and where can I see him?

9 Does Swiss manager run on Tablet-PCs, Smart-Phones or MAC?

10 Where can I enter the installation code?

11 Where the language can be set/changed?

12 Problems with Antivirus-programs

13 If Swiss-Manager makes problems (crashes during starting or problems with lists)

[Link] FAQ

14 How to generate links to other tournaments?

15 How can the ranking lists of all rounds be enabled in Swiss tournaments?

16 How can tournaments be published on the own homepage?

17 Online registration

18 How to delete a tournament on [Link]?

19 How to download a Swiss-Manager File from [Link]?

20 What to do when tournaments overwrite each other on [Link]?

21 What to do, if the advertising is covered up the lists in the tournament archiv?

22 The tournament upload does not work again, after I have deleted it

23 What you need to know when uploading tournaments (with multiple groups) to chess-
[Link]?

24 How do I get a user / password for [Link]?

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 Appendix B: Using templates to create protocols and
name cards

When you download Swiss-Manager to your computer, a folder named “Vorlagen” is saved in the
folder where the program is installed. Among other things, it contains templates in excel format
that you can modify and use to create game protocols. You can also generate match protocols for
team events, following a slightly different procedure, and name cards for every participant of the
tournament.

a) Game protocols

To create game protocols for individual tournaments, open the folder “Vorlagen” and the file
“Example2_Pairing_Cards.xls”. Create a duplicate of this file and rename it, so that
“Example2” is substituted by the name of your tournament file. For example, for a tournament file
named “1st_International_Event.TUN”, the corresponding file that you created should be named
“1st_International_Event_Pairing_Cards.xls”. Customise this file, like any other .xls file, to
match your tournament data, for example, write the title and location or add a logo. Do not change
or delete anything starting with the symbol “$”. These are parameters used by Swiss-Manager,
each one indicates where the relevant data will appear on the protocol. For an explanation of each
variable, see the other file, “Example1_Pairing_Cards.xls”. Save the created .xls file in the same
location where your tournament file is.
Then, in Swiss-Manager select the round for which you want to create a protocol and select Lists
→ Match Cards (Excel).

Close the file that opens up and go to Documents → SwissManagerUniCode → Excel →

Spezial. From the two files that have been created open the .xlsx one to get a printable list of all
the game protocols of the round. Depending on the size of the logos and other modifications you
may have made, the size of the protocols differ. To set how many will be printed in each page, go
to the original .xls file that is saved in the same folder as your tournament file and adjust the

42
parameter “$CARDS_PER_PAGE2” accordingly (change “2” to “3” for 3 cards per page etc.)
To print the protocols of the next round, just repeat the process.

b) Match protocols

The procedure to create match protocols is similar to the previous one, with the problem being that
there are no example templates to use. Turn to page 45 to see an example that you can use to create
an .xls file. Some of the variables you can use are “$MPNR0, $AMNR/$BMNR, $ATEAM/
$BTEAM, #AIDNAT4/#BIDNAT4, #ANAME4/#BNAME4, #ARTGXINT4/#BRTGXINT4,
$AKAP/$BKAP and $ENDE” (“4” stands for the number of boards; if they are more, adjust
accordingly). Keep in mind that the variables that are included in the templates for the individual
game protocols are also valid here, so feel free to experiment.
As previously, create a file named “mytournament_Matchreport.xls” where “mytournament”
shall be substituted by the name of your tournament file. For example, for a tournament file named
“[Link]”, the corresponding file that you created should be named
“League_Pairing_Cards.xls”. Save it in the folder “Vorlagen” that was mentioned before. If you
get a message that you are not permitted to save in this folder, save the file anywhere else and
drag-and-drop it the folder.
Then, in Swiss-Manager main window select Input → Set up tournament... and go to the tab
“Other”. At the bottom right of the window select the bullet “European Championship”.

Exit this window and select Other → Excel Match Report.

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A file in excel format is instantly produced and saved in the folder Documents →
SwissManagerUniCode → Excel → Spezial. Before doing anything else, select Input → Set up
tournament..., tab “Other” and turn the bullet back to “Other tournaments”.

c) Name cards

The procedure to generate name cards is very simple and relies totally on [Link]. Once
you have uploaded the tournament file, select Input → Customize lists at [Link] and
click on “Download Excel-template” at the bottom of the screen.

A spreadsheet in .xlsx format, representing a card that can be folded in two, is saved on your
computer containing a template that you can customise. Make any changes you wish and save the
file once again in .xlsx format (if you are working with OpenOffice and cannot save as .xlsx, then
save as .xls and rename the file extension, before moving further). Upload the modified file by
clicking on “Choose File” and “Upload Excel-template” and you should get a message by chess-
[Link] that the file has been successfully saved. Finally, select “Generate Table cards” either
in Excel format or PDF.

44
45
 Appendix C: Importing/exporting data/TRF files

Sometimes you may need to input data from another Swiss-Manager file, a text file or a
spreadsheet (for example, when there is an online form that participants can fill to register).

It is good practice to save your tournament file before the next steps, to avoid surprises!

a) Using Swiss-Manager files

This is by far the easiest method. In the main program window select Other → Data
import/export, select the “Player data (TUN file)” bullet on the left column, click “Start” and
browse your computer for the file you wish to import the players from.

You can follow the same procedure for more than one files, players will be added to the newly
created one. Participants who may appear in more than one files, will not be duplicated in the new
one.

In case you choose the wrong input file and want to delete all the players and start over, in
the main program window select Other → Options... and in the tab “General” click “Delete
all players”.

46
 b) Using spreadsheets

To input data (players, pairings or tables for round-robin events) from a spreadsheet, modify it so
that there is only the table with the relevant data, no headings or other comments etc. Arrange the
columns in any order (it is ok if you do not have all the available data, just use what you have), but
make sure their labels are written exactly like this (not all are needed, choose the ones you need):

No, surname, first name, Title, FIDE-No, ID no, Rating nat, Rating int, Birth, Fed, Sex,
Type, Gr, Clubno, Club, Name (if the last and the first name (in this order) are in the same cell,
Swiss-Manager will separate them), Name (for the team names), Captain, Board

Then, select select Other → Data import/export, select the “Player data” bullet on the left
column (or any other, the steps are identical, as long as the spreadsheet is correctly formatted),
click “Start” and browse your computer for the file with the table you just created. Make sure the
browsing option is set to “Excelfile (*.xls*)”.

If browsing for .xls files is not an available option, save your tournament file, exit Swiss-
Manager and re-enter. Try again the previous step and the problem should be solved.

Be careful! With this method you cannot use multiple spreadsheets to input data, because
each new entry will delete the previous one. Arrange all of your data in one table and then
move on.

When filling in forms, some people may use capital letters and some not. To make sure all the
names are written in a uniform way, once you have imported the file, select Other → Options...
and in the tab “Input Players” choose the appropriate bullet and click “Update”.

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Exporting data from Swiss-Manager to .xls files has already been discussed in Chapter 10.

c) Using text files

For a text file to be used to import data it needs to be in a very special format. To get an idea of this
format, try the reverse procedure, exporting data from Swiss-Manager to text files. This data could
be players, teams, dates or pairings. In the main program window select Other → Data
import/export, select the “Player data (text file)” bullet on the right column, click “Start” and
save the file on your computer (for exporting pairings' data you should also add the relevant
rounds).

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Open the newly created file. Looks confusing? Of course, it does! Ok, let's try something
else...

Open a file in .xls format containing a list of players, for example, a starting or alphabetical list that
you have exported from Swiss-Manager. In this file select File → Save as... and in the “Save as
type” drop-down box select the .txt format (if you are using OpenOffice, save the file as .csv and
rename the extension to .txt). Open the file with a text editor. Looks familiar? It is the same
spreadsheet, but the data is not divided in columns but separated by commas (“,”). You can try
using this file to import the list of players in a tournament file by following the procedure
described before for spreadsheets. Modify the headings as previously, choose “Textfile (*.txt)” as
a browsing option (instead of “*.xls*”) and set the separator to comma (“,”).

Ok but why should you follow this whole process when you can just use a spreadsheet
instead? Because not all online forms produce data in excel format. Sometimes they might be
in .csv or .txt, so it is good to know how it works.

Keep in mind that the reverse procedure is also possible, converting a .txt (or .csv) file to .xls
format. Just open the .txt file with excel (or rename the extension to .csv and open it with
OpenOffice) and set the parameters in the window that opens up. In this window you get a preview
of what your file will look like, so try the various options to reach a desired result.

d) TRF files

Once a tournament is completed, in order for it to be rated by FIDE, you need to send the
tournament file to the rating officer of your federation together with the TRF file.
First, make sure that the title of the tournament, the officials' names and the players' names are in
latin alphabet. Then, select Other → FIDE Data Export TRF16. A “Tournament Report File” is
created with all the data FIDE rating office needs. (The option “FIDE Data Export TRF06”
creates an older version of the Tournament report File with slightly different parameters, it is best
to use the TRF16).

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 Appendix D: Money prizes

Depending on the regulations of each event, money prizes might be distributed in different ways
among the winners. They might be awarded according to tie-breaks, be split evenly among the
players who tied or given according to the Hort System (players who tied get 50% of the prizes
according to their final rank and the other 50% is distributed evenly among those who tied). All
these settings can be made by selecting Other → Money prizes...

A window opens up with the final ranking. Next to each winner you can enter the money prize that
is related to their placement and set how to be calculated at the bottom left corner of the window.
Let's consider the example of a tournament that awards the following prizes (currency is not
important): 1st place 1000, 2nd place 700, 3rd place 400. These are the various options:

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