Question 1

How to use Puzzle Maker Pro - Word Squares

Accepted Answer

Puzzle Maker Pro - Word Squares Overview

This tutorial applies to Word Squares

There is one add-on available for Word Squares: Time Saver for Word Squares

Word Squares Explained

Word Squares is a word puzzle.

Examples of a puzzle and solution:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/O5LDuxA3R0/Word%20Squares%20Example.jpg (Word Squares Example)

Word Squares Overview

To use Word Squares, select the puzzle type in the drop down menu, or in the regular menu.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/Ub4SnTkimr/Word%20Squares%201%20Overview.png (Word Squares 1 Overview)

To create puzzles, you'll need to add a word list (as shown in the screenshot), and click Next Preview to generate a puzzle. Each click will result in a different puzzle.

To see the words in the puzzle, toggle the "Preview Solution" option at the bottom right of the window:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/Ro4s3DMFEB/Word%20Squares%201%20Solution.png (Word Squares 1 Solution)

The first time you start this module, you'll see a list of 7 words displayed. These words are just for demo purposes, so you get a valid puzzle when you start the module.

Grid Sizes and Difficulty Levels

With Word Squares you get 7 grid sizes: 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, 7x7, 8x8 and 9x9. The software will only use words from your list that:

Have the correct number of letters, for example 5 letters for x 5x5 grid, and
Have no duplicate letters. "Cobra" is valid, "agenda" is not, because it has two times the letter 'a'.

You can also use your existing word lists for word search or other software, and let the Word Squares software filter out all the words that should not be used.

There's a different set of difficulty levels for each size, similar to sudoku and latin squares puzzles:

Like our Wordoku software, the generated puzzles will always show all the letters of the word (no guess-work what the final letter should be). This is also known as well-formed puzzles.

Word List and Number of Puzzles

The word list is filtered before it's used, and only words with the correct number of letters and no duplicate letters will be used. That means that you can have a list of 10000 words, of which only 30 words can be used for Word Squares puzzles.

You can reuse word lists with formating for e.g. Zig Zag Word Search: The lines that start with #-characters and empty lines will be removed from the list of words.

The Quantity you set is actually the maximum quantity. There will be just 1 puzzle generated for each word. If the number of valid words is less than the required quantity, you'll get less puzzles. This is to make sure there are no duplicate words in your puzzle book.

If you specify Auto/Unlimited, it will use all the words from your word list.

For each word, you can add a colon and a description. For example "cat:mammal", or "Portugal:Country in Europe". The description can be used in the Instant Puzzle Books (see below). This means you can prepare word files that can also be used for Crosswords puzzles.

You can type the word list in the word list area (as shown in the screenshot above), or select a word list file. This file should be in plain text format, e.g. when you create it with Notepad on Windows. An example could be:

This word list would result in exactly 1 single puzzle for any grid size you select.

Word Styling

On the Word Styling tab, you can set the position for the solution word, and you can set the font, color, etc for the letters in the grid.

Solution Word Position

You can specify where you want the word to appear:

Horizontal on any row,
Vertical in any column,
Random - this means will randomly select Horizontal or Vertical and a random row/column number

Especially when you create multiple puzzles, the random option will create a greater variety of puzzles.

Font and Letter Color

You can click on the white font preview panel to change the font, font color and other settings. Additionally you can set the color for the solution letters, and you can set the color of the solution word cells (the default color is gray). For example, you can create the following result (depending on the fonts you have installed on your computer):

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/j1dfkv9tht/Word%20Squares%202%20Word%20Styling.png (Word Squares 2 Word Styling)

Grid Styling

Additionally you can customize the grid - the canvas and line colors and the line widths - to your own preferences.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/ZSYEM6CDV3/Word%20Squares%203%20Grid%20Styling.png (Word Squares 3 Grid Styling)

Puzzle Description

If you want to add a puzzle description for each puzzle in the Instant Puzzle Books, you'll need to add these descriptions to the words in the word list. This can be done by adding a colon after the word, and then add the description, e.g. "Portugal:Country in Europe". When you have a word list like this, you can enable the "Print Description" option on the Description tab:

Additionally you can set the font, and customize the space that's reserved for the description (by default it's 20%, that means that the actual puzzle will usually be made 20% smaller).

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/mg8NvDotED/Word%20Squares%204%20Description.png (Word Squares 4 Description (1).png)

The results in Powerpoint or PDF can look like this:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/RD0SnmCk7I/Word%20Squares%205%20Description%20Example.png (Word Squares 5 Description Example)

Time Saver for Word Squares

The Time Saver for Word Squares allows you to create puzzles for multiple word lists at once, with an option to use 'any' size grid (depending on each word) or use a fixed grid size and filter the word list.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/wQSd5muilR/Word%20Squares%20-%20Time%20Saver.png (Word Squares - Time Saver)

Select the grid size - 3x3 up to 9x9 or Any. You can also set the difficulty level. If the specified grid size does not support that difficulty level, the maximum level will be used
The maximum number of puzzles, or Auto/Unlimited (which means exactly one puzzle for each valid word in the list)
The word position
Add Word Lists. Click this button to select one or more word lists (.txt files). The settings specified for the first 3 bullets will be used, and each word list will add another row in the grid below
You can edit the settings for each row. The rows will be processed in order and the puzzles will be added to the puzzle book in this order (unless you specify otherwise)
Optionally Delete selected rows or all rows if you made a mistake (or if you want to set up another puzzle book)
Randomize the file order or the word order within each file. This makes sense if e.g. the words in the word file are sorted alphabetically

Make sure the boxes "Use Time Saver to generate Puzzles and "Use Time Saver - Fast" are checked, then click the Create / Create (TS) button at the bottom left

Optionally you can also use the Preset Puzzles option, using several presets that you've previously saved for Word Squares puzzles.

Question 2

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 3

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 4

How Can I Change the Number of Puzzle Pieces in Puzzle Maker Pro - Jigsaw?

Accepted Answer

When you start Puzzle Maker Pro - JigSaw, and create your first preview, it will use the default settings "Perfect Squares" (or another shape type) and 5 Rows.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/M456z7oFcV/Jigsaw%20002%20-%20First%20Preview%20-%20Solution.png (Jigsaw 002 - First Preview - Solution.png)

Perfect Squares / Triangles

Depending on your taste or your customer's preferences, you may want to create puzzles with squares (where each side has the same length) or rectangles.

The default setting is to use a square, an equilateral triangle, or a circle. The total height of the image will be divided by the number of rows, and this will determine the number of columns. This may cut off the sides of the image. It may also cause white bars on the sides of the image, depending on the puzzle shape you use.

Imperfect Squares / Triangles

When you uncheck the "Perfect" option, you can set both the number of rows and the number of columns.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/s6YLNqwZVb/Jigsaw%20004%20-%20Rows%20and%20Columns%20-%20Solution.png (Jigsaw 004 - Rows and Columns - Solution.png)

Setting the number of rows to 5 and the number of columns to 8 results in rectangular puzzle pieces, as you can see in the image.

The image below shows what this would look like on the page:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/JEOLW67NyA/Jigsaw%20005%20-%20Rows%20and%20Columns%20-%20Puzzle.png (Jigsaw 005 - Rows and Columns - Puzzle.png)

In this image, the puzzle pieces are also printed in a 8 by 5 grid. This is a coincidence, and depends on the puzzle size and format. Puzzle Maker Pro - Jigsaw will always try to print all the parts as large as possible.

Another example:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/NGdBlN0au5/Jigsaw%20006%20-%20Rows%20and%20Columns%20-%20Alternative.png (Jigsaw 006 - Rows and Columns - Alternative.png)

Here the difference is less extreme, but they still are not perfectly square.

Scrunched display

For older plugins (or plugins by other developers) you may have seen a strange, "scrunched", display.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/TQP6uCGf7O/Add-In%20Scrunched%202.png (Add-In Scrunched 2.png)

The cause of this is the way Windows handles fonts – You can instruct windows to scale the display of fonts and apps. For example if you have small laptop display with a HD screen, you would have very small pixels, and all the text on that display would be tiny. Windows added an option to scale it up by e.g. 150%, making it easier to read.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/LO0paMdRKp/Add-In%20Windows%20Scaling.png (Add-In Windows Scaling.png)

The result after changing this 'scale' value:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/nyYLLZu6Cl/Add-In%20Scrunch%20Fixed%202.png (Add-In Scrunch Fixed 2.png)

Note: You can also change this setting when the plugin fields seem to be shown too wide (with too much space in between)

Setting it to 100% will fix the problem, although you may need to restart Powerpoint to make it work. In addition to that, please report it to your seller or to our helpdesk and we’ll fix it.

Not all parts of the plugin are visible

First of all, we've added scrollbars to all BookPublisherTools plugins. That should make sure you can reach all the fields vertically.

Horizontally, you can make the plugin panel larger or smaller: Move the mouse (without clicking) over the left edge of the plugin panel. At a certain point the mouse cursor should change into a double-headed arrow. At that point you can press the left mouse-button and drag the panel edge to the left or right, to change the size.

Question 8

How can I quickly set up lines, squares or dots for my journal using Journal Filler Plugin for Powerpoint?

Accepted Answer

This tutorial will show you how to quickly fill a shape in Powerpoint with lines, dots or squares.

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)

Add lines to a shape with Journal Filler

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/qDKcXOE391/Filler-Lines.jpg (Filler-Lines.jpg)

Adding lines, squares, dots or little plusses to shapes is straightforward:

First, make sure you're looking at the "Lines" tab in Journal Filler.

Choose the fill option you need:

Horizontal lines
Vertical lines
Both (horizontal and vertical lines), resulting in squares or rectangles
Dots
Plusses

Depending on your selection, you'll need to set the Vertical and/or the Horizontal distance between the lines or dots. You can choose to either:

Set a fixed distance between the lines or dots (in inches)
Set the number of lines you want, e.g. 5 lines. The plugin will calculate the line distance for you when you click 'Go'

There are some presets for the line distance, such as medium ruled, wide ruled, 5 per inch, etc.

Once you're done, select one or more shapes that need to be filled, and click "Go".

Question 9

How to Set Up Puzzles and Solutions for Mixed Puzzle Books (plugin for Powerpoint)

Accepted Answer

This tutorial shows how to set up your puzzles and solutions to create a puzzle book with Mixed Puzzle Books Plugin for Powerpoint.

Puzzle Sets

For the Mixed Puzzle Books plugin for Powerpoint, we use the term Puzzle Set to indicate a set of puzzles and solutions that can be used to fill a single spot on the page of a puzzle book.

In the example we will be using four different types of mazes as four puzzle sets. However, it's totally up to you. If you would want to have a set of mazes and a set of sudokus, that would work too.

When you click "Select Puzzles", you'll see a empty list of puzzle sets, like this:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/rILtQ3FOee/Mixed%20Puzzle%20Books%20010%20Puzzle%20Sets.jpg (Mixed Puzzle Books 010 Puzzle Sets.jpg)

This may look intimidating, but it just means you haven't selected any puzzles yet.

To start, click "Add New" (1) to create a new puzzle set.

You can also save the entire list of puzzle sets as a preset (2). It's important to do this when you cannot finishe the book in one session, because Powerpoint will NOT save the plugin data with the Powerpoint file. you'll need to do this manually.

In the next screenshot you can see the puzzle sets we use for this tutorial: Four different types of mazes, 50 of each.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/6M6AAdlc7W/Mixed%20Puzzle%20Books%20011%20Puzzle%20Sets%20Example.jpg (Mixed Puzzle Books 011 Puzzle Sets Example.jpg)

When you click "Add New" or "Edit" (if you have a puzzle set selected), you can edit the puzzles and solutions.

Note: There's no built-in limit to the number of puzzles or puzzle sets you can use.

Puzzles and Solutions

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/HQSKL5ABpv/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20004%20Select%20Puzzles%20-%20Blank.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 004 Select Puzzles - Blank.jpg)

The screenshot shows the empty Puzzle Files window. This is what it will usually look like when you start, unless you have used a preset already.

For Mixed Puzzle Books, it's important that you enter a meaningful name. That way it will make sense in the list of puzzle sets.

You can click "Add Puzzles" to add puzzles, and "Add Solutions" to add solutions. Pretty easy, isn't it?

The puzzles and solutions will be displayed in the list. Especially for the first few puzzle books, it makes sense to verify that the proper puzzles and solutions are matched.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/TozOU08WIX/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20005%20Select%20Puzzles%20-%20Details.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 005 Select Puzzles - Details.jpg)

In this screenshot you can see that a number of puzzles and solutions have been selected. Each line contains < P>: showing the puzzle file name, and < S>: showing the solution file name. When you click on each line, a message box will show you the full path for the puzzle and solution.

Note: When you use presets, you'll get a warning "File Not Found", if your list of puzzle files contains files that cannot be found. For example when you've deleted the files or moved them to a different location.

Titles

Select the "Titles" tab to see more information:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/nA1gAdP70G/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20006%20Select%20Puzzles%20-%20Title%20Auto.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 006 Select Puzzles - Title Auto.jpg)

For Mixed Puzzle Books, you can set up different titles for different puzzles. For example "Puzzle ## - Sudoku" instead of just "Puzzle ##".

You can edit the Puzzle Title, Solution Title and Number Symbol here. These settings are part of the preset for the puzzles (if you choose to save a preset).

In the screenshot, the lower part of the window is greyed out. This is not used for Mixed Puzzle Books.

Question 10

How to Set Up Puzzles and Solutions for Easy Puzzle Books (plugin for Powerpoint)

Accepted Answer

This tutorial shows how to set up your puzzles and solutions to create a puzzle book with Easy Puzzle Books.

Puzzles and Solutions

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/HQSKL5ABpv/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20004%20Select%20Puzzles%20-%20Blank.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 004 Select Puzzles - Blank.jpg)

The screenshot shows the empty Puzzle Files window. This is what it will usually look like when you start, unless you have used a preset already.

You can click "Add Puzzles" to add puzzles, and "Add Solutions" to add solutions. Pretty easy, right?

The puzzles and solutions will be displayed in the list. Especially for the first few puzzle books, it makes sense to verify that the proper puzzles and solutions are matched.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/TozOU08WIX/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20005%20Select%20Puzzles%20-%20Details.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 005 Select Puzzles - Details.jpg)

In this screenshot you can see that a number of puzzles and solutions have been selected. Each line contains < P>: showing the puzzle file name, and < S>: showing the solution file name. When you click on each line, a message box will show you the full path for the puzzle and solution.

Note: When you use presets, you'll get a warning "File Not Found", if your list of puzzle files contains files that cannot be found. For example when you've deleted the files or moved them to a different location.

For Automatic book creation, you can skip the next two paragraphs.

Titles

Select the "Titles" tab to see more information:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/nA1gAdP70G/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20006%20Select%20Puzzles%20-%20Title%20Auto.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 006 Select Puzzles - Title Auto.jpg)

You can edit the Puzzle Title, Solution Title and Number Symbol here. For Automatic book creation, these settings will be identical to the settings in Step 4. For Manual book creation, this is where you should edit the settings.

In the screenshot, the lower part of the window is greyed out. This is what it looks like when you open this window from the "Auto" tab.

Placeholders for Manual Grid Creation

Please read the Manual Puzzle Books tutorial first, otherwise these settings will not make sense.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/uTw4dNJq3i/Easy%20Puzzle%20Books%20-%20007%20Select%20Puzzles%20-%20Titles%20Manual.jpg (Easy Puzzle Books - 007 Select Puzzles - Titles Manual.jpg)

For Manual Puzzle Books creation, you'll first create one or more Powerpoint slides with placeholders for the puzzles, puzzle titles, solutions and solution titles.

This will allow you to create a nice layout, changing positions, sizes, fonts, colors, etc. In the grid, you'll see (or use) names like {Puzzle Title 1}, {Solution 3}, and so on.

These codes - "Placeholders" - are needed to tell the plugin which titles and puzzles belong together. Once the copy and replace process begins, it will replace {Puzzle Title 1} with "Puzzle ##", and replace "##" with the current puzzle number.

For Easy Puzzle Books, it's not really important what these names are, as long as they not identical, and there's a number included. Therefore it's best not to change the settings.

For Mixed Puzzle Books Pro, these placeholders should be unique, to separate the different puzzle sets in your puzzle book.