Atlas / tournament documentation

Printing

The Printing settings screen, the blank ballot sheet it feeds, and what each of the five printing options changes on paper and on postings.

Printing holds five settings that decide how a tournament's paper looks: whether a printed ballot carries a QR code, whether it carries the judging instructions, how tightly the page is laid out, whether names are replaced by entry codes, and whether a draft posting reveals rooms. The same screen links to the blank ballot sheet, a page with one empty ballot per room that the tab room prints and hands to judges. Printing is reached from Setup in the left rail: Setup lists two views, Configuration and Printing. The route is /tournaments/<id>/admin/printing. The blank ballot sheet is at /tournaments/<id>/admin/printing/ballots.

A QR code is a square printed pattern that a phone camera reads. On a ballot here it opens the digital ballot for that room, so a judge can enter the result online instead of writing it on paper. An entry code is a short label such as NYU A: the school's code followed by a letter for each entry from that school.

Who can use it

Role	What it can do on these screens
Platform admin	Open both screens and save the settings for any tournament.
Organization owner or admin	Open both screens and save the settings for the tournaments the organization hosts.
Tournament admin seat	Open both screens, save the settings and print blank ballots.
Tab seat	The same as the admin seat on these screens. The app does not hold printing back from a tab seat, and the Setup rail lists Printing for it.
Compliance seat	Neither screen opens. The compliance seat is read only and is sent to Records from every admin screen other than Records and Compliance.
Organization member with the Settings only role	Neither screen opens. That role is turned away from the tournament consoles.
Coach, competitor, judge, observer	Neither screen opens. A judge who opens a room's ballot page can print that one ballot; the QR code and instructions on that paper follow the settings saved here.

A signed-out visitor is sent to sign in first. A person without access sees the page as not found. If the access check itself cannot run, the page shows an error and no settings.

Printing settings

The page is titled Printing & Layout Settings, with the line Configure the visual layout for digital and physical printed materials. Above the form a link reads Print blank ballots for the rooms still out, which opens the blank ballot sheet. The form has two sections, Ballots and Postings & Pairings, and one save bar.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Include QR Codes	Printed ballots carry a code that opens the digital ballot. Applies to the blank ballot sheet and to the paper copy a judge prints from a room's ballot page.	On
Show Judge Instructions	Printed ballots carry the tournament's judging guidelines at the top. The text comes from the instructions field of the tournament's ballot settings in Setup. When the setting is off, the blank ballot sheet leaves the block out and the judge's printed ballot hides it on paper while the screen still shows it.	On
Layout Density	Controls the spacing and margins. A select with two options, Comfortable and Compact. Compact narrows the margins, shrinks the QR code and shortens the writing lines. Applies to the blank ballot sheet and to the postings sheet.	Comfortable
Mask Participant Names	Postings and ballots show the school code and an entry letter, such as NYU A, instead of names. Applies to the printed postings sheet, the blank ballot sheet and the tournament page's public postings.	Off
Hide Room Locations Until Release	A draft posting prints the room as withheld until the round is released. Digital postings never carry an unreleased pairing.	On
Save settings	Saves all five settings together. Disabled until a setting is changed, or until a refused save leaves the bar on Not saved.	Disabled when nothing has changed

The save bar

The bar at the foot of the form shows one state at a time and sits beside the Save settings button.

State	Meaning
Saved	The form matches what is stored. This is the resting state.
Unsaved changes	A setting was touched since the last save. Save settings is enabled.
Saving…	The save is running.
Saved just now	The save succeeded. The bar returns to Saved after four seconds.
Not saved	The save was refused. A red message above the form gives the reason, and the edits stay in the controls so they can be corrected and saved again.

A successful save also writes a line to the tournament's audit record, shown on Records as Printing settings saved, naming the person and the new values.

What each option changes

Setting	Where it takes effect
Include QR Codes	The blank ballot sheet and the judge's own printed ballot.
Show Judge Instructions	The blank ballot sheet and the judge's own printed ballot.
Layout Density	The blank ballot sheet and the printed postings for a round.
Mask Participant Names	The printed postings for a round, the blank ballot sheet, and the public postings on the tournament page. When names are masked the tournament page also leaves out the speaker awards list, since it names people.
Hide Room Locations Until Release	The printed postings in draft mode only. A released round prints its rooms in either case.

Printed postings

A round's postings print from the round's print page. The toolbar there offers Include unreleased followed by the word draft and Show released only. A posting prints released pairings only unless the draft view is chosen. A draft carries a boxed line on the paper saying it is not yet released and is not to be posted. In the draft view with Hide Room Locations Until Release on, each unreleased room prints as Withheld until release. Mask Participant Names replaces each name with its entry code and drops the school line, since the code already carries the school.

How entry codes are built

School code. The initials of the school's significant words, up to four letters, so New York University becomes NYU. The words of, the, and, for, at, in, de, la and del are skipped. A one word school takes its first three letters, so Stoa becomes STO.
Entry letter. Entries from one school are lettered in registration order: A to Z, then AA, AB and onward, so a school with thirty entries still has a distinct code for each.
No school. An entry with no school or club is coded IND.
Stability. Codes follow registration order. Withdrawing or adding entries can change the letters that later entries from the same school receive.

Blank ballots

The blank ballot sheet is the page the Print blank ballots link opens. It prints one page per room, each headed Official ballot, with the tournament name, the round and the room. Each ballot lists the Affirmative entry, the Negative entry and the Judge, then the QR code labelled Scan to ballot online, the judging instructions in a ruled box, and empty boxes for Affirmative speaks and rank, Negative speaks and rank, Winner, and Reason for decision. The page is plain black on white for printing; the toolbar above it does not print.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Print	Opens the browser's print dialog for the sheet.	Always available
← Back to ballots	Returns to the ballot queue in Ballots.	Link
Printing settings	Opens the Printing settings screen.	Link
Every room in the round	Switches the sheet to print every paired room of the round. Shown while the sheet lists only the rooms still out.	Link
Only the rooms still out	Switches the sheet back to the rooms whose decision is not in. Shown while the sheet lists every room.	Link

Which rooms and which round

Scope. The sheet opens on the rooms still out, meaning rooms whose decision is not recorded. A room counts as recorded once its result is in, including a result entered at the tab desk. A room with an unfinished panel stays out. The scope parameter scope=all prints every paired room instead.
Round. The sheet prints the latest round that has a released pairing. A link from the ballot queue can name another round, which then prints in its place.
Which pairings. Only released pairings that have both an Affirmative and a Negative entry. A room with one side empty is not printed.
Order. Rooms run in room order, with numbers compared as numbers, so Room 2 comes before Room 10.
Judge line. The name of the assigned judge when that judge is on the tournament's roster, Assigned when the judge is not found on the roster, and Unassigned when the room has no judge.
Competitor lines. The entry's name, or both partners' names joined by an ampersand for a two person entry. With Mask Participant Names on, the entry code appears instead. A side that cannot be resolved reads Unknown competitor.

Layout of a ballot

Part	Comfortable	Compact
Page margins	Wider margins above, below and at the sides.	Narrower margins.
QR code	Larger square.	Smaller square.
Writing lines	Taller boxes for speaks and rank and for the winner, and nine ruled lines for the reason for decision.	Shorter boxes, and six ruled lines for the reason for decision.

Each ballot starts on a new page when printed.

Tasks

Change the printing settings.

Open Setup. Select Printing in the Setup views.
Tick or clear Include QR Codes, Show Judge Instructions, Mask Participant Names and Hide Room Locations Until Release as needed.
Choose Comfortable or Compact in Layout Density.
Select Save settings.

The bar reads Saved just now, and the settings apply to every sheet printed afterward. Sheets already printed are not changed.

Print blank ballots for the rooms still out.

Open Ballots and select Print unrecorded, or open Printing and select Print blank ballots for the rooms still out.
Check the round named on the first ballot. If another round is needed, open the sheet from that round's link in the queue.
Select Print and send the sheet to the printer.
Hand each judge the page for their room.

The sheet shows one page per undecided room. Judges either write on the page or scan the QR code to enter the result online.

Print a ballot for every room of a round.

Open the blank ballot sheet.
Select Every room in the round.
Select Print.

The sheet then lists every paired room, recorded or not, and the link changes to Only the rooms still out.

Post pairings without names.

Open Printing. Tick Mask Participant Names.
Select Save settings.
Open the round's print page and print the postings.

The postings show entry codes such as NYU A in place of names, and the tournament page's public postings do the same.

Troubleshooting

Message	What it means	What to do
Choose a valid layout density.	The save carried a density other than Comfortable or Compact.	Pick Comfortable or Compact in Layout Density and save again. Reload the page if the select shows neither.
Could not verify your session.	The sign in could not be confirmed when saving.	Reload the page, sign in again if asked, and save again.
You do not have admin access to this tournament.	The access check ran and refused the signed in account.	Sign in with an account that holds an admin or tab seat, or ask a full admin to grant one on Users & Roles.
Could not check your admin access. Try again.	The access check could not run. It says nothing about the account's permissions.	Wait a moment and save again.
Could not save printing settings: followed by a database message	The database refused the write. The text after the colon is the database's own wording.	Save again. If it repeats, report the message to the platform.
Could not save printing settings: the tournament was not updated.	The save matched no tournament row.	Reload the page and confirm the tournament still exists, then save again.
No round has been released yet, so there is no ballot to print.	The tournament has no round with a released pairing, or the round named in the link is not found.	Release a round in Rounds, then reopen the sheet.
Every room in followed by the round name is recorded, so there is no blank ballot to print.	The sheet is on the rooms still out and every room of the round already has a decision.	Select Every room in the round to print all rooms anyway.
The round name followed by has no paired rooms.	The sheet is on every room, and the round has no released room with both sides filled.	Check the round's pairings in Rounds.
Unknown competitor	A side of a pairing points at an entry that no longer exists.	Check the pairing in Rounds and correct it before printing.

Limits and notes

All five settings belong to the tournament. There is no per event or per round setting.
A masked sheet changes the paper only. Names remain in the tab room's screens.
Show Judge Instructions prints the text saved in Setup under Ballot. If no instructions are saved there, the block does not appear even with the setting on.
The blank ballot sheet has the same empty boxes whatever the ballot format. It does not copy the score columns or rank scale from the Ballot settings in Setup.
A tab desk entry does not write a ballot row, but the sheet reads the room's decision, so a room entered at the tab desk counts as recorded.