Sudokus, mazes and nonograms with Puzzle Press

Puzzle Press is the puzzle part of Printshop. It makes sheets to print — with the answers on separate pages — and you can also solve every puzzle on screen.

Start a puzzle sheet

1. Click Puzzles on the left (or press 9), or open one of the templates Four medium sudokus, Heart mazes, Round maze or Cat nonogram from File → Templates….
2. Choose the Kind of puzzle: Sudoku, Maze, Word search, Crossword, Nonogram or Maths worksheet.
3. The preview shows the real pages. The info lines below it tell you what was made, for example "Sudokus: 4, each with exactly one solution. Measured difficulty: Medium."

Every puzzle comes from a Seed. The same seed and settings always make the same puzzles, so a saved project or a share link prints exactly your sheet. Press New puzzles for a fresh set.

Answer-key pages adds the solutions after the puzzles; switch it off for the copy you hand out. Name and date line prints a line for pupils at the top.

Sudokus from 4 × 4 to 16 × 16

Under Sudoku choose the Grid size and the Difficulty:

• Easy needs only singles — the right start for children with a 4 × 4 or 6 × 6 grid.
• Medium adds locked candidates.
• Hard adds pairs, triples and X-wing.
• Expert puzzles still have one solution but need more than these techniques.

The level printed above each puzzle is measured by a logic solver, not guessed. If a puzzle could not be made as hard as you asked, the warning says so and the real level is printed. Number of sudokus and Sudokus per page (1, 2, 4 or 6) set the layout; Symmetric clues gives the classic pattern.

Mazes in squares, hexagons, circles and shapes

Under Maze:

1. Pick the Cells: Squares, Hexagons or Round (rings).
2. For squares and hexagons choose an Outline — a heart, star, circle, diamond or triangle — or My own shape and draw it with # signs, one line per row.
3. Set Columns and Rows (or Rings for a round maze).
4. Choose the Algorithm: the Recursive backtracker makes long winding paths, Kruskal many short dead ends, and Wilson makes every possible maze equally likely.

The start is a green dot, the finish a red square. The answer pages draw the path in red.

Nonograms from a picture

A nonogram shows numbers beside each row and above each column; they give the lengths of the filled blocks. Under Nonogram:

1. Choose Picture from → Built-in picture and a Picture, or My drawing and type the drawing with # for filled and . for empty cells.
2. Drawing from an image… turns a picture with a clear shape into a drawing: pick the image, set Columns, Rows and the Darkness threshold (0–255), check the preview and press Use this drawing.
3. Keep Add givens until it solves without guessing on. Printshop solves the puzzle line by line; if it gets stuck, it prints a few cells as givens so there is exactly one solution.

Play on screen

Press Play on screen… in the Puzzle section. Sudokus: type into the cells and use the arrow keys. Mazes: click the maze and move the dot with the arrow keys or the Up, Left, Right and Down buttons. Nonograms: click or press Enter to fill a cell, right-click or press X to cross it out. Check marks mistakes, Show the solution reveals everything.

To send a puzzle to play, use File → Share link… and copy the Link to play the puzzle on screen. Word lists, crosswords and maths sheets are covered in Word puzzles and maths worksheets.