Question 1

Using Shapes in POD Graphics Maker

Accepted Answer

POD Graphics Maker is a quick and easy way to make (mostly geometric) images with only a few presses of a button.

There are multiple modules available:

There are two kinds of graphics available: Tiles, and Shapes

The Getting Started Tutorials goes over the options that are available with Tiles, so let's look into what Shapes can do for us. As with any tutorial for this product, we encourage you to try all the options yourself and just play around with the software to see what it can do, and to see which settings you like and which ones you don't.

Basic Settings

We're once again using a pattern from the Starter Bundle of POD Graphics maker, this time we use 00-7 Shape - Flower. This pattern is, exactly as it says on the box, meant to resemble flower drawings.

There are three flower types, where the main difference is how the bigger petals are located compared to the smaller petals.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/MY9kss7ZF4/Flower.jpg (Flower)

You might find that two of the patterns have lines that don't look quite right. This is easily fixed the moment you start adding colours.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/eUswVLSobn/Flower%202.jpg (Flower 2)

The moment you press "Use Fill Colours" in the colors tab, it will automatically be fixed.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/bi2d14zl5A/Flower%20fill.jpg (Flower fill)

Customising your Shape

Every shape has some unique options on the first tab. For Flower, it's Petal Style, Petal Size, Flower Size, Number of Petals, Shape Size.

Petal Style changes the shape of the petals.

Petal Size changes the proportion of the center of the flower compared to the petals.

Flower Size changes the amount of rows of petals (Standard is 2)

Number of Petals does exactly what it says on the box, it changes the amount of petals per row

Shape Size changes the size of the shape, so the flower, you're creating. This may not have a big effect, depending on your settings in the prior options.

Changing those around, and we get a flower similar to this:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/8CQLhF2r90/Flower%20changes.jpg (Flower changes)

Pattern

The colors tab is the same as for the tiled patterns. If you want more information on those, that can be found at our "getting started" tutorial.

The masks and Text Overlay tabs are explained more in the mask tutorial.

Patterns, however, are something that is unique for the Shapes, and something that the tiles do not have. So let's see what the Pattern tab has to offer for us.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/NafzZuxKut/Pattern%20tab.jpg (Pattern tab)

We can change the amount of flowers that appears on the canvas, the way they are scattered across the canvas, rotate the flowers (This definitely shows better when you have less... circular patterns), and of course, the colour options.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/VYfacD6DND/pattern%20options.jpg (pattern options)

A neat detail you may notice, is that the pattern is technically seamless! You can use these in an on-going pattern, if you so choose. The other pattern options are based on tiles, where smaller and larger flowers are repeated in a solid pattern, instead of random.

You can also see there is some rotation, some flowers have a leaf on the very top, some have a gap there.

Introduction

With Puzzle Maker Pro version v2023.3.3, the Time Saver for Word Search has undergone significant changes. It now lets you combine multiple puzzle types in one single table (more about that later). This allows you to completely set up your puzzle book to look the way you want.

Using this Time Saver consists of 3 steps, before you click the "Create" button:

Set up the 'global' options for the puzzles and puzzle book,
Select the Word Lists you want to use in your puzzle book,
Configure the puzzles you want to generate and include in your puzzle book.

A good way of learning to use this version of the Time Saver is to play around with the word lists and puzzle configuration first. You can easily create 'test' puzzle books in Powerpoint or PDF format, to see the results of certain options, and delete these files when you're done.

Set up the Global Options

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/DoHTuPZd9K/Word%20Search%20TS2%20-%20Main%20Options%20Merge.png (Word Search TS2 - Main Options Merge (1).png)

First of all, you'll have to click the "Use Time Saver" checkbox at the top of the page to activate the Time Saver. The text for the "Create" button at the bottom will change into "Create (TS)".

Word List Use Options

The "Word List Use" options will override the similar options for the Word Search Puzzle Settings tab.

When you create several puzzles (for example, when you set quantity to 10), you can specify that words will only be used once (1). This means that you get a set of puzzles that don't use the same words. However, processing may stop when all words have been used.
Minimum Words for Final Puzzle will make sure there are enough words in the last puzzle, or it will stop generating puzzles. For example, if you have a list of 100 words, and the first two puzzles together use 85 words, you will not get a third puzzle, because there are only 15 words left for the puzzle.
"Stop when all words have been used" - In the previous example, you can order Time Saver to stop, so you get only 2 puzzles, or you can uncheck this options. In that case it will reset the word list and start over, with all words available for the next puzzle.
"Merge All Word Lists" (2) - If you specify more than 1 word list on the "Word Lists" tab, you may want to merge them into one large word list for all your puzzle. This allows you, for example, to use a Christmas themed word list, and a general word list together, so each puzzle will have some themed words and some words from the general list.

Layout Options

Word List Font Size
- With the default 'Variable Font Size' you may get a different font size for the different word lists, depending on the length of the words and the number of words. It's a matter of style choice whether you like this.
- You can also set it to "One Size Fits All". That will analyze all the word lists to find the largest font size that allows all the word lists to be printed in the available space.
- With "Fixed Font Size" you can explicitly specify the font size. With this option it makes sense to generate a test version of your book and check this manually: If you set the Font Size too large, some words may not be printed due to the available space the word lists.
Alignment - you can set the alignment of the puzzles in the available space. For example if you have one puzzle per page, with a trim size of 8.5" and 0.5" margins, that would leave 7.5" for the puzzle. Usually the height will then only be 4 or 5" (since the title and word list require some space as well), a square puzzle would be printed at a 5x5" size. You can set whether it should be aligned left, center or right. Additionally, you can 'force' Puzzle Maker Pro to align the word lists with the puzzle, to make the page look more compact.
In some cases, for example religious puzzle books, you may want to add a "Filtered Words" List. This is a list of words that should not appear in the puzzle by accident. (Please note: this will NOT filter words from the regular words list. If you use the word "homeowner" in a word list, and the word "meow" is in your filtered word list, the word "homeowner" can still appear in the puzzle!

Separate Word Lists

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/btqPiaMLWf/Word%20Search%20TS2%20-%20Main%20Options%20No%20Merge.png (Word Search TS2 - Main Options No Merge)

You can also choose to keep all word lists separate. In that case you can even use the word list file name as a title for the puzzle.

For example, if you have a word list "dinosaurs.txt", it can use the word "dinosaurs" as a title. When it results in several puzzles (e.g. quantity is set to 2 or higher), the puzzles will be numbered dinosaurs 1 and dinosaurs 2.

You can set up your own title format:

"Puzzle" is printed as is. You can type a different word here, or leave it out. For example for other languages you can change this.
"#" is the puzzle number. All puzzles in your book are numbered, unless you click "Don't Number the Puzzles".
%TITLE% is a placeholder that will be replaced with the name of the word file. The way this is set up in the screenshot could result in a puzzle title like "Puzzle 113 dinosaurs".

Select the Word Lists

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/KGUmdNLMBr/Word%20Search%20TS2%20-%20Word%20Lists.png (Word Search TS2 - Word Lists)

On the next tab you can select your word lists. Each file should be a plain text file with ONLY the words you want to use, each word on a separate line. Each line will be considered a separate word for the puzzles.

An example:

Configure the Puzzles

To specify which puzzles you want to generate and print in your puzzle book, go to the "Batch Creation" tab. Please don't let the numbers and arrows in the screenshot below overwhelm you.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/Sy9kpXa2K9/Word%20Search%20TS2%20-%20Batch%20Creation.png (Word Search TS2 - Batch Creation)

What you see here is a table that contains a row for each puzzle configuration that you want to create. Regular puzzles with just the number of rows and columns, Preset puzzles from your own Word Search presets, and Mask puzzles, from your own saved masks.

At the top left, you can set the Default Quantity (1) for each row you add. By default it's set to 1. You can also edit the configuration for each row later on, just by clicking on the cell you want to change.

You can move rows up and down by selecting a single row and clicking the "Row Up" or "Row Down" buttons.

You can delete rows from the table by selecting one or more rows and clicking the "Delete Selected" button, or clicking the "Delete All" button. Deleting rows from this table will NOT delete presets or saved masks.

Adding Regular Word Search Puzzles (2)

The easiest way to add puzzles, which was called 'Fast' in the older Time Saver, is by setting the number of rows and columns. In box (2) you can see that both the Rows and Columns are set to 20. When you click the button "Add", it will add a row to the table:

Type: R (Regular), this identifies the type of puzzle for that row
(File) Name "Rectangle". This has no further meaning for Regular puzzles
Word List "Default". See "Word List Setup for Specific Puzzles" below for details.
Rows / Cols: The number of rows and columns for the word search puzzle
Quantity: The number of puzzles to generate
Number of Words: The number of words for the puzzle. A value of 0 (zero) means unlimited, as many as can be fit in
Diag: Allow Diagonals for the puzzle
Rev: Allow Reversed (Backwards printed) words for the puzzle
BG: Not relevant for Regular puzzles

Adding Word Search Puzzle Presets (3)

To use your existing Word Search Puzzle Presets to the list, click "Add Presets". This will open a window where you can select all the presets you want to add. The information in the table that's specific for Preset rows:

Type: "P" for Preset
(File) Name: The name of the preset
Word List: See "Word List Setup for Specific Puzzles" below for details.

Adding Word Search Saved Masks (4)

To use your existing Saved Masks to create puzzles, click "Add Masks". This will open a window where you can select all the masks you want to add. These are mask that are saved from the Mask Editor that's shown when you click "set Mask" in the Puzzle Settings tab for Word Search puzzles. The information in the table that's specific for Mask rows:

Type: "M" for Mask
(File) Name: The name of the saved masks file
BG: Print the mask silhouette as a background for the puzzle. You can switch this on and off for each row of type Mask. Additionally, since you probably want to have a consistent approach to printing mask, you can set the default value for this option in box (4): Print Mask as Background

Word list Setup for Specific Puzzles

The "Word List" column in the table gets the value "Default" for each new row. There are some other options.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/KqsfjZax9w/Word%20Search%20TS2%20-%20Word%20List%20in%20Row.png (Word Search TS2 - Word List in Row)

To change the Word List value for any of the rows in the table, click the down arrow (the 'v' next to Default) to get a list of options.

Default: This will use the default word list setup as defined on the "Main" tab. For each row the word lists will be reinitialized
- Merge All Word Lists: For each row in this table, whether the quantity is 1 or more, the 'merged' word list is initialized and used. That means that the same word can be used for puzzles from several rows. (The option "Use Words Only Once" applies only to the quantity of puzzles for a single row)
- Separate Puzzles Per Word List: For each row in the table, the next word list will be used. For example, the first row with "Default" will use word list 1, the second will use word list 2, etc. When there are no more word lists, it will start back at word list 1.
Word List From Preset: This will work only for rows with the "Preset" type! It will use the word list that was saved with the puzzle preset. This can be a pasted list of words, or a word list file. (If you use this setting for the other rows in the table, it will revert to "Default" when processing the table
A specific Word List file: You can also select any of the word list files that you added to the "Word Lists" tab. You'll need to set up all the word lists you want to use on the "Word Lists" tab, because Puzzle Maker Pro won't know in which folders you store all your word lists. When you select a specific file, such as "Car Brands.txt" in the screenshot, only that file will be used for the puzzle.

Tips and Tricks

The previous version of the Time Saver would 'multiply' the number of word lists with the quantities set in the table. This (new) version will generate exactly the quantities that are set in the table, unless your word lists do not contain enough words.
Setting up Masks or Word Search Presets is a time investment that will pay off. You can choose to either set up a Word Search Preset with a Mask and a Word List, or to just create the Mask and Word List and combine them in the table in the Time Saver. The result will be identical
If you have a Preset with a mask, and you change the number of rows and columns in the table, the mask will not be used. Example: If you have a mask of a cat that has 23 rows and 17 columns, and you change the numbers to 25 rows and 20 columns, the mask will not fit with those dimensions and will not be used
You'll need to add ALL the word lists you want to use, on the "Word Lists" tab. These will be added automatically to the drop down menu for the Word List column
You can add a list of Presets and then add a list of Masks, and use the Row Up / Row Down button to mix them up, if needed. You can also maximize the Puzzle Maker Pro window on your computer to see more of the table.

Introduction

The Time Saver for Word Search has several options to specify the puzzles for your book:

"Fast" - Specify the dimensions and quantity for the word search puzzles
"Presets" - Specify your own existing presets to create word search puzzles
"Masks" - Specify which mask presets to use for your word search puzzles (to be released soon)

This tutorial describes the process to use "Presets" for your puzzle book. There are three steps to do this, in addition to the regular steps to create puzzles and puzzle books:

Create the Mask
Save the puzzle Preset
Select the Preset in the Time Saver

Creating a Mask for Word Search

To create a shaped puzzle using masks, first go to Standard Word Search. Then find the "Use Mask" tab and click "Set Mask".

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/IsdlTUAINb/Masks%20TS%20-%20Word%20Search%20Set%20Mask.png (Masks TS - Word Search Set Mask)

This will open the Mask Editor. Here you can create a mask from scratch, or import an image (JPG or PNG) to define the mask.

Create a Mask from an existing image

The screenshot below shows the Mask Editor for Word Search.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/lpB1FP8xTk/Masks%20TS%20-%20Mask%20Editor.png (Masks TS - Mask Editor)

There are several things you can do here:

Set the number of columns for the grid. (To keep the correct proportions for the mask, the number of rows is calculated automatically, based on the image you use)
Select an image - Click "Select File" to select a JPG or PNG image. As soon as it's selected, the grid will show the puzzle shape. Please be aware that a mask will usually remove many cells (spaces) from the grid. If you'd normally use a 10x10 grid with 100 letters, you may need to increase the size to 18x18 when you use a mask, to still have 100 letters in the grid. (You can change the number of Columns after the image is selected).
To make the mask available for further use or editing, click "Save Preset". If you don't save it, it can still be used for the word search puzzle, but you won't be able to reuse it. It's best to choose a name that reflect the image and size, e.g. "Spaniel 25" in our case.
Finally click "Use Mask" to go back to Word Search and apply the mask.

You can also edit the mask - just click the individual cells to switch them on and off.

Creating the Word Search Preset

Back in the Word Search settings, you'll immediately see a preview of a word searhc puzzle with the mask applied.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/o0NOJ8fYP2/Masks%20TS%20-%20Word%20Search%20With%20Mask.png (Masks TS - Word Search With Mask)

You can use the background image (silhouette) as a background image.
Save the Word Search puzzle WITH the mask as a preset. You can use any name, but again it makes sense to use the theme and the size. That way you can easily select the preset whenever you need it. Just type a name and click one of the 'disk' buttons.

Adding the Preset in Time Saver for Word Search

In the Time Saver for Word Search, you can first set up the Main options and the Word Lists. In this tutorial we'll explain the Batch Creation / Presets option.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/ZvRzwFi0Vh/Masks%20TS%20-%20Selecting%20Presets.png (Masks TS - Selecting Presets)

This should show you a list of your Standard Word Search presets.

Tips and Tricks

In this tutorial we've used two different presets:

Mask Presets - these are saved in a separate folder at 'my documents'/Puzzle Maker Pro/Mask Presets/ . Here you can manually copy or delete presets if needed.
Standard Word Search presets - these are saved in a different folder: 'my documents'/BookPublisherTools/Presets/PMP. In this folder you can find subfolders for each puzzle type.

A quick way to open Windows File Explorer to the general presets folder is to go to the Tools tab and click "Open Preset Folder".

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/K62AtznBzM/Find%20the%20Preset%20Folder.png (Find the Preset Folder)

Using Shapes in POD Graphics Maker

How to use the Time Saver for Word Search (v2023.3.3 and newer)

How to use Masked Word Search Puzzle Presets in the Time Saver for Word Search (for Puzzle Maker Pro version 1 to 2023.3.2)