How-to guide · how to space chairs around a table in autocad
How to space chairs evenly around a table in AutoCAD
By Saumyajit Maity · Published 19 Jun 2023 · Updated 17 Oct 2025
Arranging chairs around a table is the kind of layout you do constantly — meeting rooms, restaurants, dining rooms, conference suites — and doing it by eye gives you uneven gaps and chairs that don't face the table squarely. AutoCAD has two clean tools for it: the polar array for round and oval tables, where chairs fan evenly around a centre, and the path array for rectangular tables, where chairs space along each side.
This guide covers both, plus the clearances that make a seating plan actually work — how much space a seated person needs and how far behind a chair you must keep clear to push back and stand. Get the array and the clearances right and a fully-seated table takes under a minute, every chair facing the table at an even spacing.
The same techniques scale straight up from a four-seat café table to a forty-seat boardroom. It is one workflow, sized to the table in front of you.
Round tables: use a polar array
For a round or oval table, the polar array (ARRAYPOLAR) is exactly the tool. It copies one chair evenly around a centre point, so every seat sits at the same radius and the same angular spacing — perfectly even, perfectly facing the centre.
The workflow: insert one chair, positioned at the right distance from the table edge with its back to the outside. Then run the polar array around the table's centre, set the number of chairs, and AutoCAD fans them around the table in one move. Because it is associative, you can change the chair count afterwards and the ring re-spaces itself instantly — handy when a room's capacity changes.
Step 1 — Place the first chair correctly
The whole array inherits this one chair, so place it carefully. Insert the chair block on the seating side of the table edge, leaving a sensible pull-in gap — typically the chair sits so its front edge is about 100–150 mm under the table overhang, with the seat centred about 600 mm of width per place.
Rotate the chair so its back faces outward and it 'looks at' the table centre. Snap its position relative to the table edge precisely; if this first chair is slightly too far out or facing a touch off, every copy in the array repeats that error. Get one chair perfect, then let the array do the rest.
Step 2 — Run ARRAYPOLAR around the table centre
Type ARRAYPOLAR and press Enter, select the chair, press Enter, then pick the centre point of the table as the array's centre (snap to the centre of the circle, or to the midpoint of a rectangular table if it is oval). AutoCAD previews a ring of chairs and opens the Array ribbon.
In the Items panel, set the chair count — say 8 for an eight-seat round table. By default the array fills a full 360 degrees, evenly spacing the chairs around the whole table. Make sure 'Rotate Items' is on (it usually is) so each chair turns to face the centre as it goes round; with it off, the chairs would all keep the first chair's orientation and most would face the wrong way.
Step 3 — Tune the count and fill angle
On the Array ribbon you control two things that matter for seating: the item count and the angle to fill. For a fully-surrounded table, leave the fill at 360 degrees and set the count to the number of places. For a table pushed against a wall — seating only on three sides — set the 'Fill' angle to less than 360 (say 180 or 270) and the chairs spread across just that arc.
Because the array is associative, experiment freely: change 8 to 10 and the ring re-spaces, change the fill angle and the chairs redistribute. This is far faster than placing and nudging chairs by hand, and the spacing stays mathematically even no matter the count.
Rectangular tables: use a path array per side
A polar array suits round tables but not rectangular ones, where you want chairs spaced evenly along straight sides. For these, run a path array (ARRAYPATH) along each long side, or simply use the COPY command's Array suboption to drop equally-spaced chairs down each edge.
The approach: place one chair on the long side facing the table, then array it along that side at your seat spacing (about 600–700 mm centre-to-centre per place). Mirror the row to the opposite side (see the mirroring guide), and add end chairs at the heads of the table if the layout calls for them. The result is a boardroom-style layout with even spacing down both flanks.
Seat spacing and clearance figures
Reach for these when laying out seating. Allow roughly 600 mm of table edge per place for comfortable dining, a little more (650–700 mm) for a generous setting. Around a round table, that width translates into the chair count the circumference can take — a larger table simply fits more places at the same per-seat width.
For circulation, keep at least 900 mm clear behind a seated chair so a person can push back and stand, and 1200 mm where that space behind also serves as a walkway or serving route. In a restaurant, those clearances between adjacent tables decide the covers per square metre. Because the chair blocks are drawn to scale, dropping them in lets you read these clearances straight off the plan rather than calculating them.
Tidying the seating layout
A couple of finishing touches make the plan read well. Put the chairs on their own furniture layer so you can freeze them for a clean structural plan and thaw them for the furnished version — the same trick that keeps any furniture layout flexible. If you tag each chair block with an attribute, you can extract a seat count straight from the drawing, which is exactly what a venue capacity schedule wants.
Finally, once a table-and-chairs group reads well, consider WBLOCKing the whole arrangement — table plus its ring or rows of chairs — as a single reusable block. Then a restaurant or conference floor is laid out by copying that one furnished-table block around the room, rather than re-arraying chairs at every table.
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Questions
Frequently asked
How do I space chairs evenly around a round table?+
Use a polar array (ARRAYPOLAR). Place one chair correctly against the table edge facing the centre, then array it around the table's centre point, set the chair count and leave the fill at 360 degrees with 'Rotate Items' on so each chair faces the table.
How do I arrange chairs around a rectangular table?+
Use a path array along each long side, or the COPY command's Array suboption, spacing chairs about 600–700 mm apart. Place one chair, array it down the side, mirror the row to the opposite side, then add end chairs if needed.
How much space should I leave behind a seated chair?+
Allow at least 900 mm clear behind a seated chair so a person can push back and stand, and 1200 mm where that space also serves as a walkway or serving route between tables.
How wide should each place setting be?+
Allow roughly 600 mm of table edge per place for comfortable seating, or 650–700 mm for a more generous setting. That per-seat width determines how many chairs a given table edge or circumference can take.
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