Question 1

How to use the Word List Editor for Puzzle Maker Pro?

Accepted Answer

This tutorial shows how to use the Word List Editor for Puzzle Maker Pro.

The basic functionality is included in:

Puzzle Maker Pro - Criss Cross

Advanced options, using main and custom word lists, is available as a separate add-on:

Word List Editor for Puzzle Maker Pro.

Introduction

A requirement for all Crossword style puzzle is that they have clues. It's best to vary the clues between puzzles, and not have identical clues for the same word in all the Crossword puzzles you generate. For example: If you have "Longest river in the USA" (8 letters) in each and every puzzle, that's not very exciting for your customers.

There are two main functions for word lists and clue management. First of all, with the clue editor you can edit the clues for your word lists, before or after (!) generating puzzles. Additionally, there's an option to add your own main word list or dictionary, instead of adding the clues to each theme word list separately.

Editing Clues for Puzzle Maker Pro - Crosswords

The three options to set the clues for your words are:

Edit the word list in your favorite software.
Edit the word list in Puzzle Maker Pro, after copying or selecting it in the Word List area
Edit the clues for your puzzles AFTER generating the puzzles. You'll get this option automatically if some words are missing clues.

Editing your Word List in your own software (Notepad)

The words are listed in a simple format:

In other words: Each line in the text file has a word and a clue, separated by a colon. You can easily edit this file in Notepad on Windows. It should be a standard ".txt" file, without any kind of layout or control characters. If you're using MS Word to edit the file, make sure to select "Plain Text (.txt)" as the format, when you save the file.

This way, when you add the clues, they will be part of your word list, and can be reused each time you use the word list.

Edit Word List (in Puzzle Maker Pro)

In Puzzle Maker Pro - Crosswords (also for Criss Cross) there's an option to edit the word list you've selected. This will work both when you have copied a list of words in the words area, or if you have selected a Word List file to use. Click the "Edit Word List" button to go to the Clue Editor.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/pMF8shgxL5/Criss%20Cross%20-%20Clue%20Editor.png (Criss Cross - Clue Editor)

Here you'll see a table with the words and the clues. Once you click a word or clue, you can edit the clue. (see the screenshot below). Click "Close" on the Clue Editor window to close and save all clues and return to the Crossword module.

Edit Clues

You can even edit the clues AFTER generating the puzzles. This is how most other crossword software works as well, but Puzzle Maker Pro will also generate your Puzzle Book in PDF or Powerpoint format after adding the clues.

If you want to edit the clues after generating the puzzles, make sure the "Edit After Create" box is checked. Alternatively, if any of the words is missing its clue, you'll see a warning like this, allowing you to edit the clues:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/u9RirZS6yt/Criss%20Cross%20-%2051%20Clue%20Editor%20Warning.png (Criss Cross - 51 Clue Editor Warning)

If you click "No", then some words in the puzzle book will have blank clues. You can always edit the PDF or Powerpoint document after it's created.

If you click "Yes", you'll see the following window:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/eXunFAG2RN/Criss%20Cross%20-%2053%20Clue%20Editor%20Puzzle%20Clues%20-%20Numbered.png (Criss Cross - 53 Clue Editor Puzzle Clues - Numbered)

Select the file you want to edit. The file name may seem a bit cryptic, the dropdown list shows all the word / clue files for the puzzle. By selecting them one by one, you'll be able to check or edit the words for each puzzle.
The words and clues are shown, along with the position in the puzzle (V 3 means Vertical word 3). By clicking the word CROSSSUM or the empty clue field, you'll be able to edit the clue
Textbox to edit the clue
Click "Save Clue" to save the clue to the table. Alternatively you can click the "Auto Save Changes" box, this will automatically save changes when you change to a different word or file
Select a clue from the list - these clues are taken from the main and custom dictionaries (if you have the dictionary add-on)
Add changes automatically to the custom dictionary, or "Add All" words and clues to the custom dictionary at once, for future re-use. (This requires the dictionary add-on)
Save / Close: Leave the Clue Editor Window. After this, Puzzle Maker Pro will automatically generate puzzle books for you.

Using a Dictionary Word List

The use of main and custom word lists, is available as a separate add-on: Word List Editor for Puzzle Maker Pro. Not everybody may need or want this.

Our Dictionary system allows you to set up a main dictionary that has many words the clues for the words. Additionally you can add a 'custom' dictionary, that will be used to add all the new clues you add in Puzzle Maker Pro.

The main dictionary and the custom dictionary are separate files, this allows you to use dictionaries (clues) that you download or purchase elsewhere, and still save your own custom clues separately.

Theme Word List

In the (theme) word list for your puzzles, it's allowed to include only the words and not the clues. For the dictionaries, the clues are mandatory, since the main purpose of the dictionary is to provide you with clues.

When you use the Time Saver for Crossword, you can add multiple word lists, to create a large set of themed puzzles with a single mouse-click.

Main Dictionary

The main dictionary, or main word list, can consist of millions of words with corresponding clues.

For puzzles like Criss Cross, this dictionary is used to provide you with clues for the words that are used in the puzzle. This way you don't have to add clues in your theme word lists. Of course you still can add clues to the theme word list, which will have priority over the clues in the dictionaries.

The format of the main word file is identical to the theme word list format:

The main dictionary will never be changed by Puzzle Maker Pro.

At the time of writing, we do not include dictionaries with Puzzle Maker Pro.

Custom Dictionary

The custom dictionary is used to save clues that you add while creating puzzles. You can edit the word list before creating puzzles, and add all the clues to the custom dictionary, you can also edit the puzzle clues after creating the puzzles (but before generating a puzzle book), and add the clues to the custom dictionary.

Using Multiple Languages

Like all other Puzzle Maker Pro features, you can easily use different languages with the Crossword modules. However, you should make sure that you change the main dictionary and the custom dictionary when you use word lists for other languages. Otherwise Puzzle Maker Pro may for example add English clues from the dictionaries to French words from your word list.

Workflow options

There are different ways to use word lists in Puzzle Maker Pro - Criss Cross (and future modules):

You can create Criss Cross puzzles using your own word lists, including clues. In which case there is no need to use the built-in Clue Editor. (Note: It's faster to edit clues and descriptions in Notepad or Notepad++ or any other text editor. Our Clue Editor needs to do some extra checks because it can be linked to your dictionaries).
You can create Criss Cross puzzles using your own word lists, and add clues before or after creating the puzzles. Before your puzzle book (Powerpoint or PDF) is created, there's an automatic check to verify that each word has a clue, and you'll get the option to edit the clues with the clue editor.
Optionally you can also edit the puzzle clue files in your favourite text editor, but you have to make sure that required parts, such as word positions, remain in place
If you use a dictionary, Puzzle Maker Pro will automatically retrieve missing clues from your dictionary. You can still choose to edit the clues before creating a puzzle book.

Why so many options? First of all: With professional crossword software, it's best practice to create the puzzle(s) first, and edit all the clues after that, to create the best possible puzzle and clues. We definitely wanted to support this workflow.

The resulting mask. If you already had a mask selected, it will be shown here, otherwise all cells will be part of the mask,
The image selection panel. Either click here to select an image, or drag and drop an image onto the white panel
Depending on the image, you may need to adjust the background color
At the top you can see a status message. In the screenshot it’s green “Cells are connected”. If there are disconnected ‘islands’ of cells in your mask, it will show a warning in red.
After selecting an image, you can change the Mask Sensitivity to create a better result,
After changing the grid size or Mask Sensitivity, click “Scan Image” to create the new mask from the current image. This will overwrite any manual changes that you’ve made.

You can toggle each square (or tile) in the mask by clicking on it, or by using the advanced editing options:

Setting the background color

For regular silhouette images, the background will be either white or transparent. You can also select a different color, or even switch the foreground and background for a silhouette image. It’s also possible to use white and a selected other color and transparent as three different options to determine the background.

Changing the Mask Sensitivity

The Mask Sensitivity is the threshold for background pixels in each cell (square or isometric). If there are more background pixels than that threshold, it will be excluded from the mask. Otherwise it will be included. You can manually adjust the threshold to create a slightly different mask from your image.

Three examples of different Mask Sensitivity settings:

Mask Editor - Scan Sensitivity

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/I3rpsYCuEO/Masks%20Add-On%20Sensitivity.jpg (Mask Editor - Scan Sensitivity)

Create Masks Manually

Click on the “Manual Editing” tab (in the Mask Editor) to reveal the advanced editing options:

Masks Add-On Manual Mask Editing Options

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/zLPM5rq2AZ/Masks%20Add-On%20Manual%20Mask%20Editing%20Options.jpg (Masks Add-On Manual Mask Editing Options)

Action - Toggle will switch the color from black to white and vice versa. This will include or exclude the cell or range from the mask.
Action - Copy Color will copy the color of the clicked cell to all the cells in the range
Range Type: When you click on a single cell (tile), you can select whether just the cell, the row or the column have to change color
Range Size: Adjust 1, 3 or 5 cells, rows or columns at a time

The screenshot shows the result after two mouse-clicks:

Click on a cell with Action “Toggle”, Range type “Row” and Range Size “3”
Click on a different cell with Action “Toggle”, Range type “Column” and Range Size “3”

You can see that by using Toggle, some of the white cells in the rows have turned black again. By using “Copy Color” you can prevent this.

You can also see that the result of these two actions is a maze that is NOT connected (see the red warning at the top of the window). I’d have to do more editing to make this into a good shape for a maze.

Note: clicking the cells for editing is somewhat sensitive. If you move the mouse while clicking, the software will not know whether you want to move or click. (If you zoom in, using the mouse wheel, you can click and drag the image, to view exactly the part that you need to see best).

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 7

Using the add-ons for Zig Zag Word Search

Accepted Answer

Welcome to the tutorial for the add-ons for Zig-Zag Word Search.

There are two add-ons available for this software.

Let's look over what these two have to offer.

Extras Add-on

Diagonals look interesting, and can create a lot of new effects.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/Ms3phl3AIY/Zigzag%20word%20search%20diagonals.jpg (Zigzag word search diagonals)

The little crosses, as the diagonals go over each other, are a nice added difficulty and look really good in the solution too.

You can also use this option with the Word Snake option.

Word Snake

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/1721Phn4Ed/ZigZag%20Word%20search%20snake.jpg (ZigZag Word search snake)

Word snake is a variation on the normal zig zag word search puzzles. Usually, the words can go anywhere they want, and in whatever form they want. In word snake, they will go into a single long line. This is represented in the solution by using a continuous line for the words, and the little dotted lines in between the words. You can see that the next word will always start next to, or diagonal to, the ending of the last word. This isn't a singular looping line, so there are two words that have a beginning and an end without anything connecting to them. See if you can find those the start and end point!

Random Shapes

This is by far the most interesting and unique variation on the zig zag word search puzzles. Usually, you'd only work within a grid, where each letter is directly next to its neighbours. Not in this variation. Here, the letters are placed more or less randomly on the screen.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/Xz5G2lP2no/zigzag%20random%20shapes.jpg (zigzag random shapes)

So how does this work? Well, if you go to style, and add a bit of "line width", you can see the boxes that the letters are contained in, and what boxes are neighbours.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/DEUgMzokYJ/Zigzag%20voronoi.jpg (Zigzag voronoi)

This is called a Voronoi Diagram. You can look up how this works if you want to, but the more interesting part is how this works. No longer are there three (or eight, if you use diagonals) possible routes from each letter, now it can be any random number. It adds a layer of difficulty, while looking very different from the puzzles you get with other word search options.

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)

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

Troubleshooting Mazes 2D Tiles

Accepted Answer

There are some problems you can run into when using Puzzle Maker Pro - Mazes 2D Tiles. Below we have shown the most common problems you can run into, and how to solve them.

Isometric Tiles

The Isometric Tiles are too small.
I see Square Tiles in my Isometric Maze
The Tiles in my Isometric Maze are not properly aligned

Masks Add-On - How do I fix Empty Cells in my Maze?

There are several possible reasons why empty cells appear in your maze:

Missing Tiles – If you don’t specify the tiles for each variation (e.g. 1, 12, 13, 123, etc), the maze generator will leave that space empty
Masks – If you use a mask or a quick mask, you’ll get empty (unused) cells
Empty Cells – If you specify a number of empty cells, these will be randomly selected in the grid. If you don’t have a “0” tile, these cells will be left empty. The “0” tile is for cells with no connections

Tile Multiplier

WARNING: Missing Tiles! Unable to complement all tile variations

How to use the Word List Editor for Puzzle Maker Pro?

How to use the Masks Add-On for Puzzle Maker Pro - Mazes 2D Squares

How to use Puzzle Maker Pro - Secret Word Grid (Video Tutorial)

Latin Squares Video Overview

How to Create Puzzle Books in Powerpoint with Mirrored Margins (video)

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

Using the add-ons for Zig Zag Word Search

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)

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

Troubleshooting Mazes 2D Tiles