Import and export

OpenPairings reads and writes several formats. They differ in purpose:

Importing#

On the Tournaments page, the Import menu holds the ways in (backup, hand-off, SWAR, TRF). Each one opens a panel with a file chooser or a drag-and-drop area.

TRF file#

Import a TRF tournament reads a .trf file in TRF26 or TRF16 format and creates a complete tournament: the header data (name, city, federation, dates, time control, arbiters, round dates), the players with their FIDE IDs, ratings, titles and birth dates, the rounds, the pairings, the results and the byes. A bye or absence the file records for the round not yet paired (a 240 record, or the XXZ line SWAR writes for the players absent from the next round) comes in as a bye for that round, so the next round leaves those players out. The starting rank of the file becomes the pairing number. The type of the tournament is taken from the file (Swiss, round robin, team). The unknown result ? comes back as a postponed game, worth what the file's X (record 162) says an unknown result is worth - a draw when the file says nothing. An X that is a win or a loss in the file's own points also becomes how the tournament counts a postponed game (Settings, Scoring), which takes it out of FIDE mode; an X that is none of the three is refused, with the value named. On the Pairings page such a board shows as * postponed; pick the real result there once it is known. A board the file pairs without a result yet (a file saved while the round was being played) comes back as a game still being played: the import report names its round, and the next round waits for its result. Team files give the teams and their board orders, and the matches of each round that can be worked out from the boards (a round whose matches are unclear is named, not guessed).

The program does not trust the file: it recomputes the points and lists every player whose total differs from the file, and every round of a Swiss tournament is checked against the pairing rules: a rematch, two players who were both due the same colour, a pair that the file's own prohibition record forbids, a second pairing-allocated bye.

The review step. Nothing is written until you have seen the review that follows the choice of the file:

• The version. The review says whether the file was read as TRF26 or as TRF16. TRF16 has no records for the point system, the tournament type or the tie-breaks; the review then lists what the import used instead.
• The adjustments. Every place where the import had to decide something is listed: the default scoring used when the file has no point system, the tournament type imported when the code is missing or unknown, a Swiss whose code says it was paired by the 2017 edition of the Dutch system (its rounds are kept as played; the rounds paired here follow the current one), round-robin cycles reduced to what the program plays, tie-breaks that were not in the file or that the program does not compute, a number of rounds taken from the rounds the file holds, deputy arbiters beyond the fourth, team forfeit and bye points, extra points outside the scoring, virtual points that are not FIDE's Baku method (imported as extra points in acceleration mode: each round keeps the virtual points it was paired with, and each player holds the points the file gives for the next round), games without an opponent that were imported as byes, and rounds that were not checked because only a Dutch-system Swiss can be.
• Result symbols that are not result codes. A symbol in a result column that is not a result code (a 5, an x, a %) is read as a game with an unknown result and imported as a postponed game, like ?. Every one is listed with the player, the starting rank, the round and the symbol found. The opponent's result in that round is set to unknown as well, and the list says so, because both sides of a game must agree. A symbol in a round with no opponent (0000) is not a game and the file is still refused; the message names the player, the round and the symbol. Cancel imports nothing.
• Results assumed for the check. The rounds after a game with an unknown result (?, or a symbol read as one) are still checked against the pairing rules, counting that game as played and worth the file's X for both players (a draw without one) - what the import makes of it, a postponed game. The review says which rounds were checked that way and lists every game assumed, with its round and its two players.
• Players who look withdrawn. A TRF file cannot say that a player withdrew: it shows a player with nothing in the later rounds, which is also what an absence looks like. So the review lists, under Looks withdrawn - will be paired in the next round unless you mark them withdrawn, every player who played or had a bye earlier and has no game and no bye in the last round of the file, or in the last several in a row. Each has a tick Import as withdrawn. Ticked, the player is imported as withdrawn and is not paired again; unticked, as active, and the next round pairs them. A player with nothing in the last two rounds or more is ticked already; a player who missed only the last round is not, because one missed round is usually just that. Change either as you see fit, here or afterwards in the player list. Not listed: a late entrant (blank rounds at the start, games at the end), a player with nothing in any round, a player with a half-point or full-point bye in the last round or a bye already granted for the next one, anyone in a file whose rounds have all been played, and the players of a round robin or a team event. A zero-point bye counts as nothing. What you chose is kept with the tournament and in its audit log.
• Rounds that break a pairing rule. If a round of the file breaks a rule, the review is headed This file's rounds break the FIDE pairing rules and says that importing is not compliant with the pairing rules. This is a warning that needs your explicit confirmation (Level 3). The button then reads Import anyway; otherwise it reads Import. Cancel imports nothing.

A confirmed import creates the tournament with the rounds exactly as the file records them. What the import adjusted and every rule it found broken are kept with the tournament and in its audit log. (The TRF file for the rating office has records only and no comment line about it; the copy and the ITDX file do.)

JSON backup#

Import an OpenPairings backup reads a file made by Export full backup (JSON) (below), up to 10 MB. It gives a new tournament, owned by you, with the settings, officials, teams, every player field, rounds, results, byes, forbidden pairings, pairing rules, the record of what was sent to the rating office and the games that live boards reported (Live boards). The original is never touched, even when you import your own file again. If anything goes wrong nothing is left behind.

What does not travel: restore points, the logo, the phones enrolled for result entry, the connect codes and the relay key of a board box, the lock of a hand-off, and everything that would act on its own: the publishing switch and address and the open entry form (publishing has to be switched on again for the copy, Publishing). The audit trail and the collaborators travel only in a hand-off file, and the collaborators come back as pending invitations that each person must accept.

A tournament in a group (Tournament groups) carries the group's name, its label and its place in the file, for whoever reads it. The import does not use them: the copy arrives in no group, and you add it to one on its Settings page if you want it there.

SWAR file#

With the SWAR import feature on (Account menu, Features, Belgian pack), Import a SWAR tournament reads a .swar file with players, rounds, results, byes, scoring configuration (including the 3-2-1 club scoring), absences and the categories. Players without a FIDE ID are looked up in the FIDE list and you confirm the matches in a Resolve FIDE ids step. A SWAR team competition can be imported as an individual tournament (the games), not as a team event.

Uploading a SWAR file again

If the file is a tournament you already have here (SWAR keeps one id per tournament in every file it saves), the panel says so and offers three ways on: Compare and merge, open the tournament, or import another copy.

Compare and merge lists everything that differs between the file and the tournament, and nothing changes until you press Merge:

• Tournament settings - keep the ones here or take the file's. Settings that decide how rounds are paired stay as they are once a round is paired. Settings the file does not have (norms, a manual ranking, publishing) are never touched.
• Player details - keep or take the file's. Players are recognised by FIDE ID, then national ID, then name and year of birth. Players only in the file can be added: they get the next free pairing numbers and join after the last round here. Nobody is renumbered, and players only here stay.
• Results and byes - one choice per game. A result the file has where there is none here is taken unless you say otherwise. A result that differs from one entered here is a conflict, marked in the margin, and is kept as it is here unless you pick the file's.
• Pairings that differ are shown and never changed: a round paired here is not re-paired from a file. To use the file's pairing, delete the round here and merge again.
• Rounds only in the file, after the last round here, can be added.

Before anything is written, the tournament as it was is saved as a restore point on its History page, so a merge you regret is one click away from undone. If the tournament changes while you are looking at the comparison, nothing is merged and you are asked to upload the file again.

Results from a CSV file#

On the Pairings page, More, Import results (CSV). See Results.

Receive a hand-off#

Receive a hand-off takes in a tournament that another copy of the program handed over. See Accounts, sharing and hand-off.

Exporting#

Settings, Export (the page Export / backup):

TRF (FIDE rating report)#

The TRF26 file for the rating office. A table lists every paired round with its state (being played, ready to send, sent) and a tick; Download a copy (not for rating) and All rounds (TRF copy, not for rating) give a copy of that same file with a few comment lines saying so, and Send… gives the file for the rating office and marks the games as sent. This is a part of the reporting procedure and is explained in Sending to FIDE.

The file written is TRF26, the 2026 report format. It has the player rows in the TRF16 layout, and the tournament records: number of rounds (142), initial colour (152), the point system if it is not 1, ½, 0 (162), the program (182), the type of tournament (192, for example FIDE_DUTCH_2025 for a Swiss, _BAKU with acceleration, BERGER_ROUNDROBIN_Gn, FIDE_TEAM_TYPEA_MP_GP, or CUSTOM_SWISS for Keizer), the tie-breaks (202) and the rate of play (222). It reports the games played and nothing that is only there to pair the next round: no virtual points (250), no prohibited pairings (260), no bye granted for a round not yet paired (240) and no administrative extra points (299). A copy adds ### comment lines at the top saying it is a copy, and the notes the program keeps about the event. Transfer to another program (ITDX) is a third file, for handing a running tournament to another pairing program: it writes ? for games without a result (and X in record 162), the national rating records, the pairing records (250, 260, 240, 299), all the notes, and a write-only block of ### OP lines with settings, rules, the time each round was paired and the round events, with the reason you gave for a hand edit beside it (plain ASCII, accents removed). It is not for rating, and says so in its name (ITDX-NOT-FOR-RATING) and inside. Importing it gives the same pairings, colours and scores; Sending to FIDE tells the difference between the three files.

How the engine paired each round. The ITDX file ends, after the last player, with ### OP trace lines: for every round in the file, how the pairing engine paired it, in its own words. For a Swiss round that is the engine's own output, the round loaded, the boards with their colours, how the score groups fed each other (the float cascade) and, per bracket, who moved down, who was paired, who floated and which criteria decided. It is worked out just after the round is paired, from exactly what the engine was given, and the first line says whether it ends with the boards that were stored. A team Swiss round gets the engine's report of the matches, the bye and the colours. A round paired before this was kept shows the round's stored explanation instead, labelled as such; a round robin, a Keizer round, a match's second leg and a round made by hand say there was no engine run to show. If the boards were changed after the engine paired them, a line says so. Players appear by starting rank only. Like the rest of the ### OP block it is informational: importing the file ignores it, and the file for rating and the copy never have it.

Each paired round can also be selected by ?rounds=1-5 in the address of the download (ranges and single rounds, such as 1-3,6).

Extra points in the file. In the ITDX file (not in the file for rating), extra points that count in the standings are written as record 299: a handicap from before round 1 (round 000), points kept in the final standings in acceleration mode at round 999. Extra points in acceleration mode are also virtual points (250): the points each round was paired with, and, while rounds remain, the points the next round will be paired with. A tournament imported from the file has them all back and pairs its next round as this one does. Extra points that neither count in the standings nor reach the pairing (a handicap that is not counted, or a negative value in acceleration mode when the points are not kept) have no record in a TRF: a line under the downloads says how many players hold such points, and a tournament imported from the file has none.

The older TRF16 spelling of the extension lines, which TRF pairing programs such as bbpPairings read, is available by adding ?dialect=engine to the address of the download.

A postponed game is written as the unknown result ?, worth a draw in the file (the X of record 162). When every postponed game in the file counts as the same win or loss for both players - a tournament imported from a file whose X said so, say - X is that value instead, so the file's points match the standings and importing the file again gives the same tournament. When the tournament counts postponed games as different things meanwhile - a win for the player who did not ask, say, which is only possible outside FIDE mode - the standings and the file differ in points, so the file's rank column is then worked out from the file's own points and tie-breaks, not copied from the Standings page. With the default valuation (a draw for both) the two are the same.

Backup and copy#

• Export full backup (JSON) - the file described above, for this tournament. On the Tournaments page Export all (JSON) exports every tournament you own in one file.
• Export .swar (v7, experimental) (Belgian pack) writes a SWAR file. A line lists what the SWAR format cannot hold of this tournament - among them an absence worth anything but half a point (SWAR has a tick box for the half point and nothing else) and an expelled player, who is written as SWAR's Forfeit, as a withdrawn player is.
• Export SWAR results page (.html) (Belgian pack) writes the SWAR-style results page.
• Publish to the federation's results site (Belgian pack, administrator).

Players (CSV)#

Export players (CSV): you choose the columns (add, remove, move up or down), the column separator (comma, semicolon for Excel on a Belgian or Dutch machine, tab, pipe), the order of the rows (starting rank and rating, or name), whether to leave out absent players, and whether to add the UTF-8 marker that makes Excel read the accents right.

PGN#

Pairings page, More, PGN (metadata only - no moves are recorded): this round or all rounds, with or without board numbers, or a range of boards. The program does not record moves; each game in the PGN file has the players, the round, the date, the result and a result token as its move text. It is a valid PGN file, but a game that cannot be replayed.

A tournament with live boards also has the games the boards reported, with their moves: see Games and PGN, and Setting up electronic boards for how they get there.

The FIDE forms#

Advanced, Norms (Categories and norms).

Backups made by the program#

A tournament database backup is written automatically about once a day (see Accounts, sharing and hand-off), and a restore point is saved before every action that is hard to undo. These are separate from the files above.