Has anyone worked up a Word Template for a Tournament Flyer that they would like to share?
There will have to be at least two different Templates for Scholastic and Adults. But a positive answer to either would be appreciated.
Why do you think scholastic events need a separate template?
Since we can’t even generate a TLA template that makes all organizers happy, what makes you think we can do it with a flyer? Seriously, you can try with the one on TD/Affiliate. I know that that isn’t a Word document, but it’ll also write a TLA for you.
Why does there have to be a separate template for scholastic and “adult” events?
Alex Relyea
Answer happy: I am not trying to make every organizer happy. I wouldn’t even dream of trying. I don’t want an USCF Template. I want anyone’s.
Answer Scholastic: Because the audience is different and generally the prizes are different (Trophy only). But maybe not.
I’ll check out the TLA. I really don’t have a project this minute. But since it is about the same information would make sense to standardize it a bit for both the reader and composer.
Maybe a good alternative would be a screen snap shot of the TLA on the flyer. But that solution wouldn’t help organizers. It might help a reader though (sometimes it is hard to find info on a flyer)
I think the concept of a flyer template is a good one, and IMHO the idea for the online TLA Service was also a good one but I think it tried to do too much.
A simplified online TLA form, designed for events that will most likely NOT have a TLA in Chess Life (since we now have a way to call up the text of future Chess Life TLAs to include in things like TLA Mail–see below), would probably be an improvement. Such a form could limit the number of sections, leave out fields for things like hotel rates, airline discounts and car rentals, and even greatly simplifying entering the list of prizes offered. (We don’t need to try to validate the total prize fund or the list of prizes eligible for Grand Prix points, for example.)
Even taking the Chess Life encoded TLA and splitting it up based on which fields are bold seems (to me) to produce something a bit easier on the eyes as a web page, though occasionally the line breaks seem to be in the middle of things.
For example, here’s one of Steve Immitt’s upcoming events, which is not very complicated: uschess.org/tlas/4155.ctla
For a more complicated one, here’s what the upcoming USATE (or World Amateur Team as they now prefer to call it) looks like: uschess.org/tlas/3893.ctla
And here’s the 2010 World Open, which may be about as complicated as a TLA gets: uschess.org/tlas/3857.ctla
But I’m still not sure why a separate template is needed for scholastic events. Is it because the prizes are probably trophies instead of $$? If all it gives is a list of prizes, is that a big difference?
I’m not a MS Word expert, but if someone wants to try generating a template, I’m sure we can find a place for folks to download it on the website.
BTW, sending out the links to the Chess Life TLAs in things like TLA Mail and membership renewal notices is starting to generate a fair number of hits.
Last week there were 170 different TLAs that were accessed as a result of those links, from 330 different IP addresses.
During January we sent editions of TLA Mail to over 900 USCF members. BTW, in case I haven’t mentioned it lately, you can sign up for TLA Mail and other email services by going to secure2.uschess.org/email/email-pref-update.php
Instead of a Word template, what would people think of a PDF with fill-in form fields?
I have several flyer templates, but I don’t use Word for them (not flexible enough). You need something frame-based. I use Adobe InDesign, but that’s massive overkill for most projects.
Sounds good to me
Yeah probably Word isn’t flexible enough.
I figure out that someone has worked this problem out before. Too bad you didn’t use Word. But okay at least you have the problem worked out (for you)
I have several flyers in Word that I use over and over. The first version, years ago, took a lot of work. Now, for a new tournament I pull up a previous year flyer and re-save it under a new name. Then I just change the details (event name and dates, section cuts, time controls prizes etc.) as necessary. Is that the kind of thing you wanted?
– Hal Terrie
You can do a satisfactory flyer in Word. The problem is that it’s text-based rather than frame-based, so it’s hard to put things exactly where you want them. I do have a few basic flyers for small/uncomplicated tournaments that I did in Word, so it’s certainly not impossible. But when you have a bunch of sections and a lot of prizes, it’s hard to fit them properly without frames.
I have some reservations about everyone using a single template. While it might raise the average quality, it would discourage originality and creativity. There’s more than one way to do it right.
Pretty much. That is a pretty sensible approach. In fact that might be easier than Word Template.
Note to RFEDITOR. I certainly don’t thing such a template should be required or even expected. I just think that some standard format would be helpful. Of course that format will be evolving.
I don’t know if this is off topic, but is it possible to print result sheets with the player’s names and what color they have from either of the standard [Swisssys or WinTD] pairing programs? I thought of this because of this thread and figured it would be a good way to prevent players from playing at the wrong board. I have players at the wrong board as a problem at scholastic tournaments. So if when they arrive at the board and the board result sheet doesn’t have their name on it, then they will know they are at the wrong board.
Larry S. Cohen
I’m not quite sure I understand the question, but using SwissSys for MACA scholastics, we usually do an alphabetical printout of the first round pairings. That tends to lessen confusion, although there is, of course, no place to mark the results.
Alex Relyea
Larry are you visualizing having a result sheet for the players to mark at every single board? Something that they would fill in and turn into the scoretable as their result?
I’m not sure if there is a standard way. One possible way in WinTD would be to make the tournament a fixed board team tournament with one player per team and the team name being the same as the player name. Then you could print team results sheets that would have the players’ names and colors.
Seems like a bit of overkill, but it is an available option.
The U.S Open used to do something similar – all players had to turn in their scoresheets as they left the room, and the TD on station recorded the result. It gave the tournament some class, but it was rather labor-intensive and probably not worth the effort for lesser events.
Yes, I was thinking of something at every board for the players to fill out. Part of the idea was to have a result sheet for the players to turn in [which I know has been done at tournaments such as the US Amatuer Team] and part of the idea was to have at each board a sheet to confirm for the players that they are at the correct board. Even in adult tournaments I have seen cases where a player goes to the wrong board. Maybe this is excessive micromanagement, but if done it could and would cut down on the number of problems that do occur [especially in scholastic tournaments] of players going to the wrong board. Just a thought.
Larry S. Cohen
I think I understand what you’re asking. You’d like something that prints out a sheet with “Board 1: Alice Attack (white) vs. Bob Bishop (black)” that you can then put next to board one. Then Alice Attack and Bob Bishop can check they are the right players at the right board.
If so, and if you’re using SwissSys, I don’t see an easy way of doing this with one pairing per page. But maybe you could get something useful by making the font for the pairing sheet fairly large and adjusting the height of the lines so that the pairing chart prints with maybe a dozen lines per page or so. Then it’s just a matter of scissors …