Question 1

What exactly is the Time Saver in Puzzle Maker Pro?

Accepted Answer

Puzzle Maker Pro started as a puzzle generator, with limited flexibility to create puzzle books. Early users requested functionality that offered more flexible creation of puzzles and puzzle books. The name "Time Saver" was suggested by those early users, because the add-ons can save a lot of time.

Time Saver Explained

Each Time Saver (add-on) consists of two parts:

Options to create more puzzles a bit faster, in a flexible way
Additional layout options

Faster Puzzle Creation

These options can be found under the "Time Saver" tab in Puzzle Maker Pro. The actual features depend on the puzzle type, for example for Sudoku you can select different sudoku types and difficulty levels, while for Word Search you can also add your own Word Lists.

To use the Time Saver to create puzzles, you'll have to make sure the "Use Time Saver" checkbox is enabled. This will also change the text of the "Create" button to "Create (TS)".

Layout Options

The "Page Layout" tab (can be found on the "Instant Puzzle Books tab" in Puzzle Maker Pro) is enabled by the Time Saver Add-on.

Conclusion

Whenever the term Time Saver is used, we refer to the functionality described here.

Question 2

How to create an Instant Puzzle Books with custom margin settings

Accepted Answer

In this tutorial we'll set up a puzzle book layout with different settings for left and right pages.

Step 1 - Set the puzzle options

In this example we'll work with Sudoku, which is one of the easiest puzzles to create - since there's no need to set up a word list or other input.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/5PqtIUAORB/1%20Set%20Puzzle%20Options.jpg (1 Set Puzzle Options.jpg)

We'll create just 2 pages, with 6 puzzles in total, to illustrate the layout options.

Step 2 - Set the Desired Output Type

In this case we'll create a Powerpoint file and a PDF.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/x7hOz2ziqj/2%20Output%20Type.jpg (2 Output Type.jpg)

Step 3 - Set up the Page Format

The next step is to set up the Page Format and the Margins.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/TGtbmgjGsS/3%20-%20Page%20Settings.jpg (3 - Page Settings.jpg)

1 - The Page Format or Trim Size

In this example we'll set it to 8.5"x11". You can use any trim size you want. However, with smaller trim sizes and large margins, there will not be much space left for the actual puzzles and solutions!

(For puzzle books generated with Puzzle Maker Pro, there's no need to use Bleed, unless you set the margins to zero. Normally the puzzles will be placed within the page margins, and not in the margins and bleed area.)

2 - Top and Bottom Margins

You can set these as desired.

3 - Left/Right Margins

Let's say you want different margins for left and right pages, because you want a larger gutter margin. In that case the "Left" Margin setting is used for the outer margins (left margin on the left page, right margin on the right page), and the "Right"setting is used for the inner margins (right margin on the left page, left margin on the right page).

To illustrate this in the output, we'll set a really large inner margin of 1.5".

4 - Mirror Margins

By default, if you would create a PDF or Powerpoint file (that can be exported to PDF with Powerpoint), the first page would be a right page (the front cover), the 2nd page would be a left page, etc.

However, if you use different margins for left and right pages, it's important to specify which page is the first one. However, if the first page is not a 'right' page, you'll have to add a cover page to your PDF or Powerpoint file manually.

We select "Mirror Margins", and unselect "First is Right Page". That means the first page is a left page, and you'll have to add the cover page later.

These are the settings to create different left/right margins in your puzzle book.

Step 4 - Page Layout

The final part to set up is the page layout:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/VFqrWNpxgb/4%20-%20Page%20Layout.jpg (4 - Page Layout.jpg)

Here you can set the number of rows and columns for the puzzle pages (1) and for the solution pages (2).

In addition to that, you can specify the padding (distance) between the puzzles (3). In this case it's set to 0.1"

Step 5 - Create

After setting the different options and settings to your taste, click "Create". Puzzle Maker Pro will now create the puzzles for you, and create the Instant Puzzle Books from those puzzles.

Here are screenshots of the Powerpoint results (first image) and PDF results (second image, only two pages shown).

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/EuQdeQCyv5/5%20-%20Result.jpg (5 - Result.jpg)

Question 3

How to use the Manual mode in Mixed Puzzle Books (plugin for Powerpoint)

Accepted Answer

This tutorial explains the Manual mode in Mixed Puzzle Books (plugin for Powerpoint)

Overview of the Manual process

Using Mixed Puzzle Books with Manual Layout adds a few steps to the Automatic process:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/WS53HEptbA/Mixed%20Puzzle%20Books%20020%20Manual%20Layout%20Overview.jpg (Mixed Puzzle Books 020 Manual Layout Overview (1).jpg)

Some of the steps are identical to the "Auto" approach, some are different:

Select Puzzles - Select puzzles and solutions
Set up the Puzzles Grid (this will be used to generate the template in step 4)
Set up the Solutions Grid (this will be used to generate the template in step 4)
Create the Template Pages for your book
Define the Templates to use - you have to tell the plugin which slides are the puzzles templates and which slides are the solutions templates
Create Puzzle Book

In addition to that, you have to click the "Use Manual Layout" box to make sure the settings are used.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/QeCv0UcQaB/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20050%20-%20Manual%20Overview.PNG (Easy Puzzle Books 050 - Manual Overview.PNG)

Step 1: Select Puzzles

This is step is identical for Automatic Layout and Manual Layout. A tutorial can be found here.

Step 2: Set up Puzzles Grid

This is step is identical for Automatic Layout and Manual Layout.

Step 3: Set up Solutions Grid

This is step is identical for Automatic Layout and Manual Layout.

Step 4: Create and Edit the Template Pages

For both the Puzzles template and the Solutions template, there are three things you need to do:

Step 4.1: Specify the number of puzzles for the template

The number of puzzles does not have to be equal to the grid size, because you can select more than one page (slide) for the template. For example, you could choose to create different 'left' and 'right pages.

For example, if you have a 2x2 grid (4 puzzles on a page), you could choose to have 4, or 6 or 8 puzzles in the template. (or any other number!). If you choose a number larger than 4, you'll need multiple pages. By default the nur of puzzles is set to the grid size.

Step 4.2: Create Grid Puzzles (or Solutions)

Click the green button "Create Grid Puzzles" (or "Create Grid Solutions") to create new slides with the specified number of puzzles.

The screenshot shows a grid with 3 rows and 2 columns, and Nr of Puzzles set to 6, so you'd get just 1 single slide.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/NTqUsi9n1K/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20041%20-%20Manual%20Create%20Grid.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books 041 - Manual Create Grid.jpg)

Here you can see the 6 different placeholders for puzzles, and 6 for puzzle titles. (You'd see the same type of placeholders on the solution template.

As long as these placeholders remain in place, you can completely change the look and feel of this template slide. For example, change the position of titles and puzzles, change the font and color of the titles. You can also change the size of the puzzle placeholders.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/equTmkIObX/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20042%20-%20Manual%20Edit%20Grid.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books 042 - Manual Edit Grid.jpg)

You can repeat this step for the Solution Grid, so you'll end up with at least one Puzzle Page Template, and one Solution Page Template.

Summarized: The Grid Size (e.g. 2x2) defines how a basic grid will be generated, the "Nr of Puzzles" controls how many puzzles will be used on the template. (You can leave it to be identical to the default values)

Step 5: Define the Template Pages To Use

You can create 1 or more template slides for the puzzles, and 1 or more tempate slides for the solutions. That means the plugin cannot really know which is which, and you have to specify which slides to use. (That means you can even create one master Powerpoint file with all your templates, and just select the ones you need for this session).

When you use more than 1 template slide for puzzles or solutions, you can also include slides that do not have any placeholders, but other text, images, etc.

In the screenshot below we've used 1 puzzles template slide and 1 solutions template slide:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/OfYHNVD1Ta/Mixed%20Puzzle%20Books%20021%20Puzzle%20Templates.jpg (Mixed Puzzle Books 021 Puzzle Templates (1).jpg)

The red arrows (right to left) show how the "Nr of Puzzles" determines the layout. The green arrows show the definition of Puzzle Template and Solution Template.

To do this: First select the puzzle slide (or slides) in 'Slides Pane'. In the example that's slide 2. With this slide selected, click the green "Set Puzzle Slides" button (Step 4).

Next select the solution slide or slides. In this example that's slide 3. Click "Set Sol Slides".

You can now see a small status text (the red rectangle in the screenshot): "Puzzle Slides: 2" and "Sol Slides: 3". The numbers are the slide numbers.

Finish: Create Puzzle Book

The settings for the final step are identical to the settings for Automatic Layout. Click "Create Puzzle Book" to create slides (optionally in a new file) with your puzzles and your manual layout.

The screenshot below shows the results when you'd use 3 puzzles in the template, in an edited 2x2 grid, and 6 solutions in a 2x3 grid.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/atW1bl6YnS/Mixed%20Puzzle%20Books%20022%20Manual%20Layout%20Result.jpg (Mixed Puzzle Books 022 Manual Layout Result.jpg)

You can see one blue square: That's one of the placeholders in the template that was not replaced by a puzzle (because there were only 200 puzzles, this would be puzzle 201). You'll need to remove these additional placeholders manually.

Final remarks

Feel free to play with the options, and it's best to make a lot of mistakes and learn from them. (That's what I do as well).

The suggested workflow, at least while getting started, is to set up the puzzles and the grid, and create a book from those puzzles. That way you can see how the puzzles work together when mixed. The next step can be to choose a different grid format, or to choose the Manual Layout.

Once you've create a couple of books, you'll probably have a couple of layout templates that work well for you, that can be reused (using presets).

Puzzles / Solutions per Page

The settings for Puzzles per Page and Solutions Per Page is part of the puzzle settings, but it can be adjusted when creating the grids: If you set it to 1, and the grid is 2x3, you'll need 6 puzzles / solutions per page. It will be automatically set to 6. (It's only adjusted when CREATING the grids, not in other steps)

However, there's no automatic check later on, so if you manually adjust these numbers, e.g. set the Puzzles per Page to 4, you may get an incomplete set of puzzles in your book, or worse, you get duplicates.

An example: For the first page, the first puzzle number will be 1. Then 2, etc. For the second page (more precisely: the second copy of the puzzles template slides, the first puzzle number will be 1 + the number of Puzzles per Page. When the Puzzles per Page are set to 4, the second page will start with puzzle 5. When Puzzles per Page is set to 8, the second page will start with puzzle 9.

If you use a grid with 6 puzzles on a page, the first example (with 4 puzzles per page) will result in duplicates, while the second example (with 8 puzzles per page) will never print puzzles 7 and 8.

Question 4

How to use the Manual mode in Easy Puzzle Books (plugin for Powerpoint)

Accepted Answer

This tutorial explains the Manual mode in Easy Puzzle Books (plugin for Powerpoint)

Overview of the Manual process

The "Manual" way of creating puzzle books consists of a number of steps:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/N5EaNwfdcq/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20044%20-%20Manual%20Panel.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books 044 - Manual Panel.jpg)

Some of the steps are identical to the "Auto" approach, some are different:

Select Puzzles - Select puzzles and solutions (identical), and set up the placeholder codes for the puzzles (optional)
Create Puzzles Page - Set up the grid (identical), and Create the Puzzles template slide (new)
Create Solution Page - Set up the grid (identical) and Create the Solutions template slide (new)
Select Slides (New) - Select which template slides to use for puzzles, and which for solutions
Create Puzzle Book - (identical)

Step 2 and 3 include creation of the template slides, and manually editing (changing) them. This diagram illustrates the steps.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/QeCv0UcQaB/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20050%20-%20Manual%20Overview.PNG (Easy Puzzle Books 050 - Manual Overview.PNG)

Placeholders

Part of this process is creating "Placeholders" that will be replaced by puzzles and puzzle titles later. There are three steps that affect the placeholders. For Easy Puzzle Books this is mostly automatic, because there's only one puzzle type involved. The three steps are shown in this diagram:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/8J40NaqEh7/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20051%20-%20Manual%20Placeholders.PNG (Easy Puzzle Books 051 - Manual Placeholders.PNG)

Set up Puzzles - As part of the puzzle setup, you can specify the specific placeholders for the puzzle. There are four different placeholders: Puzzle, Puzzle Title, Solution, Solution Title. Each of these will be used in the template that you can edit.
Create Grid - A new slide will be created that contains placeholders for the puzzles, solutions and titles.
Create Puzzle Book - Will create as many copies of the template slides as needed, and replace the placeholders with the actual puzzles, solutions and titles.

The diagram below shows examples for the different steps. We'll cover all of these in detail.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/BLxUQcVCL3/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20052%20-%20Manual%20Examples.PNG (Easy Puzzle Books 052 - Manual Examples.PNG)

Set up Puzzles - Placeholders

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/qHVgFjX8da/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20040%20-%20Manual%20Placeholders.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books 040 - Manual Placeholders.jpg)

The tab "Titles" in The Puzzle Setup window will let you edit the Placeholders. As you can see, there are four of them, Puzzle (Image), Puzzle Title, Solution (Image), Solution Title. These are the four different items that will be placed on your puzzle pages.

There's a "Placeholder Code" which is set to "%%" by default. However, if you need to use "%%" in your titles, you can set it to a different value.

You can also set the number of Puzzles per Page and the number of Solutions per Page. For example, if you want to create a 2x3 puzzle grid, you'll have 6 puzzles and 6 puzzle titles on a puzzle page.

To keep track of which title belongs to which puzzle, they are numbered: {Puzzle Title 1} belongs to {Puzzle 1}, {Puzzle Title 4} belongs to {Puzzle 4} etc. (See the example screenshot in the next paragraph).

Remember: These are just temporary numbers on a page. For example, the third page with puzzles that's generated in step 5, will have replace {Puzzle Title 1} with "Puzzle 13", and {Puzzle 1} with the image file for puzzle 13.

Note: If this dazzles your mind, just remember not to edit these placeholders.

Create Grid and Edit Layout

You can set up the grid just like you did for "Auto", but in this case you need to click "Create Grid" to actually create a template slide. With a 2x3 grid, it can look like this:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/NTqUsi9n1K/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20041%20-%20Manual%20Create%20Grid.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books 041 - Manual Create Grid.jpg)

Here you can see the 6 different placeholders for puzzles, and 6 for puzzle titles. (You'd see the same type of placeholders on the solution template.

As long as these placeholders remain in place, you can completely change the look and feel of this template slide. For example, change the position of titles and puzzles, change the font and color of the titles. You can also change the size of the puzzle placeholders.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/equTmkIObX/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20042%20-%20Manual%20Edit%20Grid.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books 042 - Manual Edit Grid.jpg)

You could even copy the template slide and remove some of the puzzles, to have 2 puzzles on the first page, and 4 on the second page.

You can repeat this step for the Solution Grid, so you'll end up with at least one Puzzle Page Template, and one Solution Page Template.

Select Slides

You can create 1 or more template slides for the puzzles, and 1 or more tempate slides for the solutions. That means the plugin cannot really know which is which, and you have to specify which slides to use. (That means you can even create one master Powerpoint file with all your templates, and just select the ones you need for this session).

When you use more than 1 template slide for puzzles or solutions, you can also include slides that do not have any placeholders, but other text, images, etc.

In the screenshot below we've used 1 puzzles template slide and 1 solutions template slide:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/sJRcL1WK2t/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20045%20-%20Manual%20Select%20Slides.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books 045 - Manual Select Slides.jpg)

First select the puzzle slide (or slides) in 'Slides Pane'. In the example that's slide 2. With this slide selected, click the green "Set Puzzle Slides" button (Step 4).

Next select the solution slide or slides. In this example that's slide 3. Click "Set Sol Slides".

You can now see a small status text (the red rectangle in the screenshot): "Selection P 2 S 3". P is for Puzzles, S for Solutions, the numbers are the slide numbers.

Create Puzzle Book

Just like in "Auto" mode, you can select whether you want to collate the puzzles and solutions, and whether you want the puzzle book to be created as a new Powerpoint file. Click "Create Puzzle Book" to use the slide templates and create your book. Here's an page created with the template from the earlier example:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/Q1T3DIbT5P/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20043%20-%20Manual%20Puzzles%20Page.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books 043 - Manual Puzzles Page.jpg)

Final remarks

Feel free to play with the options, and it's best to make a lot of mistakes and learn from them. (That's what I do as well).

The selected puzzle files and titles, and the grids, are shared between the "Auto" and "Manual" workflows. That means that you can start with an "Auto" approach, see how the puzzle book turns out, and if needed, use the "Manual" to finish the product.

Puzzles / Solutions per Page

The settings for Puzzles per Page and Solutions Per Page is part of the puzzle settings, but it can be adjusted when creating the grids: If you set it to 1, and the grid is 2x3, you'll need 6 puzzles / solutions per page. It will be automatically set to 6. (It's only adjusted when CREATING the grids, not in other steps)

However, there's no automatic check later on, so if you manually adjust these numbers, e.g. set the Puzzles per Page to 4, you may get an incomplete set of puzzles in your book, or worse, you get duplicates.

An example: For the first page, the first puzzle number will be 1. Then 2, etc. For the second page (more precisely: the second copy of the puzzles template slides, the first puzzle number will be 1 + the number of Puzzles per Page. When the Puzzles per Page are set to 4, the second page will start with puzzle 5. When Puzzles per Page is set to 8, the second page will start with puzzle 9.

If you use a grid with 6 puzzles on a page, the first example (with 4 puzzles per page) will result in duplicates, while the second example (with 8 puzzles per page) will never print puzzles 7 and 8.

Question 5

How to Set Up Your Grid for Easy Puzzle Books (plugin for Powerpoint)

Accepted Answer

This tutorial shows how to set up grids for Easy Puzzle Books.

Overview

With the Grid Editor you can set the number of columns and rows, in the red square in the screenshot below.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/ZZnqxTZb4Y/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20020%20Grid%20Editor.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 020 Grid Editor.jpg)

Columns sets the number of puzzles next to each other (horizontally). Rows sets the number of puzzles below each other (vertically).

The grid will be determined by the trim size of your book and the type of puzzle: A 8.5"x11" sudoku book, can easily have 2 columns and 3 rows, unless you want to use a large font size. A coloring book usually has only one image on each page (1 column, 1 row).

Outer Margins

You can set top, bottom, left and right margins that will be excluded from the puzzles area. These margins can be, but don't have to be, identical to the page margins you've set elsewhere.

However, if you want to add additional text, embellishments or other content on your page, you can use the Outer Margins to specify where the puzzles should start. For example: If you place a 2" image or text at the top of each page, you can set the top margin to 2" or 2.5".

Inner Margins

Inner Margins, or padding, is the empty space between columns and rows. In most cases you'll want at least 0.1", or better 0.25", to add enough space.

Square Shapes and Alignment

By default, the grid will divide the available space on the page into a grid, based on the columns and rows settings. This will usually create rectangular placeholder shapes. In many cases, such as sudoku, most word search puzzles, etc, puzzles are square, not rectangular. You can use the option "Use Square Shapes" to create square shapes instead of rectangular.

The six buttons below the "Use Square Shapes" option set the alignment for the text and images: Left - Center - Right and Top - Middle - Bottom. This will determine where square shapes will be placed but also where puzzles will be placed inside the shapes, if the format is not identical to the shape.

Note: For "Auto", these settings will be applied in the background, since there will be no visible placeholder shapes. For "Manual", these settings will be applied to the placeholder shapes only. Once you create a book in "Manual" mode, it will only use the placeholder shapes, not the grid settings.

Title Space

For each puzzle there's a "Title" and an "Image" (the image is the actual puzzle or solution).

When you create a grid, for example with 2 columns and 3 rows, there will be 6 areas. Each of these areas will contain a title and a puzzle. By default, the top 20% of the area is reserved for the puzzle. In some cases this will be too much, and you can adjust this to get the perfect layout for your books.

Note: Once you have found a good layout for a certain type of puzzle and a certain trim size, you can save these settings as a Preset, allowing you to reuse the settings each time you create those books.

Examples

In the examples we used a page size of 8.5"x11"

"Auto" 2x3 Grid

In "Auto" mode, the grid you specify will not be created visibly, until you create a book.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/HMcyXSulkB/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20021%20Grid%20Example%201.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 021 Grid Example 1.jpg)

In this screenshot you can see we've set the interior margins to 0.25", for a grid of 2 columns and 3 rows. The result is shown below:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/Xqgw5GV3OR/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20022%20Grid%20Example%201%20Result.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 022 Grid Example 1 Result.jpg)

This page was created using a set of sudoku puzzles. As you can see, the space between the columns is far more than 0.25", because the puzzles are square, and centered in the available space for each grid location.

In this case, the titles may be placed a bit too far from the puzzles (which is a matter of taste and design best practices).

Let's reduce the title space to 10%:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/EOdDPo6Gt2/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20022%20Grid%20Example%201%20Result%202.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 022 Grid Example 1 Result 2.jpg)

"Manual" 3x4 Grid

In this second example, we'll use a 3x4 grid, and set the title space to 15%.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/qM3kgAfcYA/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20024%20Grid%20Example%202.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 024 Grid Example 2.jpg)

"Use Square Shapes" is not selected for the first results, and look at the screenshot below:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/bwrhnMGsTC/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20025%20Grid%20Example%202%20Result%201.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 025 Grid Example 2 Result 1.jpg)

The shapes are rectangular, and there's 0.25" space between the shapes.

The next example has "Use Square Shapes" switched on, and you'll quickly see the difference.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/XCdevgkb67/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20026%20Grid%20Example%202%20Result%202.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 026 Grid Example 2 Result 2.jpg)

Note: In the "Manual" mode, each of these blue shapes will be replaced by a puzzle image. If the puzzle does not have the same format (square or rectangular with the same ratio), it will reduce the size of the puzzle image to make it fit inside the blue placeholder.

Note 2: The placeholders in these images are blue because that's the default setting for Powerpoint on this computer. You may have other settings. The color is not important, because the shape will be replaced by a puzzle later on.

Question 6

How can I quickly set up a layout with the Journal Filler Plugin for Powerpoint?

Accepted Answer

This tutorial shows you how to quickly create a tight layout in Powerpoint using the Journal Filler Plugin for Powerpoint.

As you know, each 'page' in Powerpoint is called a slide. That's the terminology we will use in this tutorial.

Overview

The Journal Filler Plugin for Powerpoint will save you time with two different options:

To use the Journal Filler Plugin, click on the "Add-ins" option in the Powerpoint menu. This will open the Add-in ribbon, that includes the "BookPublisherTools" options. In the "More Options" menu you can find "Journal Filler". This will open a new side panel in Powerpoint.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/c2xd7twyDJ/Add-in%20menu.jpg (Add-in menu.jpg)

There are two ways to add new shapes on a slide (or on several slides)

Add shapes on a blank slide - this will create new shapes with black/white colors only
Set up a shape on your page, and use that as a template for new shapes.

Add shapes on a blank slide

An easy way to get started with your journal or planner layout, is by adding a basic layout on a blank slide. With a blank slide we mean a slide that does not yet contain any shapes or other things.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/UUTYtulvDt/006%20Empty%20Blank%20Slide.jpg (006 Empty Blank Slide.jpg)

As you can see in the screenshot, we've used Easy Journals to set up an 8.5"x11" page layout, and to add guides for the 0.5" margins. (These guides are not required for Journal Filler.)

At the right you see the Journal Filler plugin, where the "Shapes" tab is selected. Here you can:

Set outer margins, that you don't want covered with shapes. You can set this to 0 (zero), to 0.5" for KDP margins, or to larger sizes to create a specific layout. For example to keep the top half of the page empty.
Set Interior Margins, the margins between your shapes. You can specify the horizontal distance between columns, and the vertical distance between rows
Set the number of rows and columns.

In the example we create 3 columns x 3 rows, with 0.1" margin between the rows and columns, and 0.5" margins on the outer borders. This will result in a new layout like this:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/qtC7QP8VC6/007%203x3%20for%20Blank%20Slide.jpg (007 3x3 for Blank Slide.jpg)

When you create shapes on a blank slide, the shape fill color is white, the border line will be black, and the font color is black as well.

You can also use custom colors and font settings for your shapes, by starting from a 'template' shape:

#Add shapes from a 'template' shape

Or... you may want to use specific color settings - a rose gold background with a purple script font and green borders.

Journal Filler will let you replicate (copy) the shape you create with the exact same settings.

Step 1 - Set up the shape format, position and size

First you add a shape to your slide. For journals and planners you'll probably use squares, but you can use stars, arrows, etc as well.

You can change the colors, font style and font color as you wish. In the screenshot below we just used a white background with black borders:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/chogcVIhdF/Filler-Squares.jpg (Filler-Squares.jpg)

To be honest, these four squares have been created from a larger square.

Step 2 - Set up the number of shapes you want

Journal Filler will create the specified number of shapes in the place of the selected shape. If you set the number of rows and columns both to 2, you will end up with 4 shapes, each approximately 50% of the height and width of the original shape. (It will apply the Interior Margins you set).

Step 3 - Add the new shapes

Now you can select the shapes you want to use as templates (1 or more) and click "Add" to add the new shapes.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/BuZqZa6IpQ/Filler-Smaller-Squares.jpg (Filler-Smaller-Squares.jpg)

In this screenshot you can see the result after:

Selecting the top left and bottom right squares, and selecting 1 column and 2 rows, then clicking 'Add'
Selecting the top right and bottom left squares, and selecting 2 columns and 1 rows, then clicking 'Add'

Using Ctrl-Z you can undo all the changes made by the plugin.

Step 4 - Customize and embellish

After you've created this basic layout, you can manually change, resize and edit the shapes any way you want. These are 'just' Powerpoint shapes.

Question 7

How can I use different layouts for left and right pages in Ultimate Planner Maker?

Accepted Answer

This video tutorial shows how to set up the different page sections and how to create different layouts for left and right pages in Ultimate Planner Maker.