Question 1

How to Use the Time Saver Add-On for Mazes 3D Isometric

Accepted Answer

With the Time Saver Add-On for Mazes 3D Isometric you can create your mazes faster, and you can use additional layout options for the Instant Puzzle Books.

Batch Creation of puzzles

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/QbLhIrYcvn/Mazes%203D%20Isometric%20Time%20Saver.jpg (Mazes 3D Isometric Time Saver)

Here you see the following options:

The row with all the options. If you select Time Saver, you'll see this screen.
"Use Time Saver to generate Puzzles". Make sure this checkbox is checked if you want to use the time saver. You can tell it's active if the bottom shows "Create (TS)".
The Time Saver menu. Add new categories of puzzles, different grid types, and change the cube sizes and amounts of cubes.
Add row. With this you can add more kinds of puzzles to be generated.

You can quickly add rows with your preferred settings by changing the values at the top of the "Grid Setup" area, and then click Add Row. This will add one row to the table with the settings you selected.

You can also edit the values in the table: For the Grid Type and Path Type columns, you can click the downward arrow to select a different type. For the number columns, just click the value you want to change, and you'll be able to edit it.

Note: To use the Custom Height Maps or the Manual Start/End points, you'll have to use the "Preset Puzzles" tab, these options cannot be set with the "Fast" option.

Question 2

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

Accepted Answer

This video shows how to use the manual workflow in our Easy Puzzle Books or Mixed Puzzle Books plugins for Powerpoint to create interiors with Mirrored Margins.

Question 3

How do the difficulty levels for Sudoku and Wordoku work?

Accepted Answer

Grading and Difficulty Levels

There are several different Sudoku puzzle variations available in Puzzle Maker Pro:

Our Wordoku puzzles are graded with the same rules:

One of the important things when solving, publishing and creating sudoku puzzles, is to set the difficulty level. In other words: Grading the puzzle.

When you look at sudoku puzzles from different sources, such as magazines or puzzle books from mainstream or independent publishers, websites, or apps, you'll find that a 3 star or medium sudoku puzzle does not always have the same characteristics.

You may notice that sometimes you can easily solve a 6 star (very tough) sudoku puzzle, while you might get stuck at a 3 or 4 star puzzle in another puzzle book, or even in the same puzzle book.

2022 Changes

In earlier versions of Puzzle Maker Pro, we've used various websites to 'calibrate' our sudoku algorithms. At the start of 2022 we've released an update of Puzzle Maker Pro that has a brand new sudoku generation engine.

To help you, as a puzzle (book) publisher, we disclose the rules by which our sudoku puzzles are graded. We've determined these rules by examining puzzles from various sources, and we've tried to set up a balanced grading approach, that can also be logically explained.

Sudoku 9x9 Grading

First of all: Sudoku is a logic puzzle, not a math puzzle. Sudoku grading is based on the logical operations that are required to solve the puzzle.

Note: Some vendors use the number of clues (a.k.a. the number of digits in the puzzle when you start solving it) to grade the puzzle. Please be aware that this is very wrong: There are sudoku puzzles with only 17 clues that would be graded as Easy by all sophisticated grading systems.

Logical Operations

Although this article is not a Sudoku tutorial, if you want to understand difficulty levels, you'll need to understand the types of logical operations that can be used:

Naked Single: Only one number is possible in a given cell (square), all other numbers have been eliminated
Hidden Single: Even though there are several numbers in a given cell, that cell is the only location (in a row, column or box) where the number can be placed
Naked Pair, Naked Triple, Naked Quad: 2, 3, or 4 numbers that are the only possibilities for 2, 3 or 4 cells
Hidden Pair, Hidden Triple, Hidden Quad: Just like the Hidden Single, there are other numbers in the 2, 3 or 4 cells, but the 2, 3 or 4 numbers that form the Pair, Triple or Quad, can only be placed in these cells and not elsewhere.

In general, for Sudokus up to 5 star level (which is called very hard, in Puzzle Maker Pro), you can find Naked Singles, Hidden Singles, Naked Pairs, Naked Triples and Hidden Pairs.

Other operations can found on several websites and in sudoku books, such as X-Wing, Y-Wing, (Simple) Coloring, Tracing, Overlay Reduction (also called Pointing Pair / Line Box Reduction), etc etc. These operations can be needed for 6 * and up.

Difficulty Levels

Level 1: Only a 'few' Naked Singles and Removing Options (if a '7' is already present in a row, column or box, you can remove it from each cell in that row, column or box)
Level 2: Many Naked Singles
Level 3: Level 2 plus a few Hidden Singles
Level 4: Level 3 plus many Hidden Singles and possibly a Naked Pair or Naked Triple
Level 5: Level 4 plus more Hidden Singles and several Naked Pairs or Naked Triples
Level 6: Level 5 plus more Naked Pairs / Triples and possibly a 'Very Hard' technique (e.g. Hidden Triple or Overlay Reduction)
Level 7: Level 6 plus more 'Very Hard' techiques and possibly a 'Tough' technique (e.g. X-Wing, Coloring)

Is this a big change compared to the old sudoku puzzles?

No, but as part of the new (2022) sudoku 'engine', I decided to make the grading rules more explicit and to offer transparency about them.

Grading of other Sudoku Variations

For regular 9x9 Sudoku puzzles, there are quite a few websites and apps that can be used to solve and/or grade the puzzles. For other formats, ranging from 4x4 to 25x25 sudokus, and for the variations such as Twins, Triathlon, Marathon, Samurai and 3D sudoku, there is no such thing. (And, as far as I know, nobody else is transparent about their grading system. If there's any standard to be found anywhere, I'll be happy to use that for Puzzle Maker Pro)

The approach that's used in Puzzle Maker Pro is easy to use, but there are some caveats, which I'll explain after describing the main approach.

Main Approach

A 9x9 sudoku has 81 squares, while a 10x10 sudoku has 100 squares and a 16x16 sudoku has 256 squares. Sudoku variations have more squares as well. For example, a Triathlon sudoku has 189 squares and a Samurai sudoku has 360 squares.

The approach chosen for Puzzle Maker Pro is to scale the difficulty level thresholds proportionally: When a 9x9 sudoku needs 7 hidden singles to be considered Level 3, a 10x10 sudoku would need 9 or 10, a 16x16 sudoku would need 22 and a Samurai Sudoku would need 32 hidden singles to be Level 3.

Small Sudokus 4x4 and 6x6

For the smaller sudokus, there are fewer difficulty levels, since certain options (quads) cannot occur, and even in Hard 6x6 sudokus, triples will be very rare.

Caveat

However, the occurence these patterns, such as naked or hidden triples or quads, does not increase proportionally, at least not linearly, but faster than that.

For example, when you have a 9x9 sudoku, where in a given row, 5 clues are given. In that case there are 4 squares empty, which 4 possible numbers for these squares. The chances that there is a (naked or hidden) triple or quad are very small. But if you compare this to a 25x25 sudoku, where 5/9 or around 60% of the clues are given, the result is very different. You'd have 15 clues and 10 empty squares. The odds of having triples or quads are still small, but a lot bigger than for a 9x9 sudoku.

Currently, Puzzle Maker Pro does not compensate for this additional complexity.

Like the older version, the difficulty levels 3 and 4 will be reasonably easy to solve, level 5 will be comparable to regular 9x9 level 5 difficulty, but levels 6 and 7 can be relatively much harder to solve. Of course this all depends on the actual puzzle format and variation.

Question 4

On how many computers can I install Puzzle Maker Pro?

Accepted Answer

Aach license of Puzzle Maker Pro is sold to be used by one single person on one single computer. However, we can fully understand that you may want to use the software on both your laptop and your desktop. This is allowed.

However, if more than one person will be using the software at the same time, it's only fair that you purchase multiple licenses. Incidental use, such as a spouse, parent or child helping you out for an hour or two, is allowed. However, if you have a VA (Virtual Assistant) or an in-house assistant who's also spending considerable time with the software, that person should have a license of their own.

To summarise: every person using the software should have their own licence to the software.

Question 5

How can I set the font for puzzle books?

Accepted Answer

This tutorial shows the steps to set the font for the puzzle titles and solution titles in your puzzle books.

By default, these puzzle and solution titles will be created with the font Arial. In most cases that should be fine, and Puzzle Maker Pro has been optimized to use this font.

However, starting at version 11.1, you can now use other fonts as well.

Choosing the font you want

Go to the Instant Puzzle Books tab and select the Titles Setup tab. There you'll see a Title Font Settings section.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/TvOo58GsO8/Title%20Font%20Selection%201.jpg (Title Font Selection 1.jpg)

Here you see the standard font preview panel that's also used in other places in Puzzle Maker Pro. You can click the white panel or click the small finder icon to go to the font setup panel.

For the puzzles and solutions titles, only the font will be used. Color and positioning settings are ignored.

Once you select a font and click OK, the font file name will be shown. In the screenshot you can see "Arial.ttf". That means everything is setup and you can create your puzzle book.

Manually selecting the font file for PDF output

In some cases, Puzzle Maker Pro will not be able to automatically find the proper font file. In those cases you'll see something like this:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/R909dAIjtt/Title%20Font%20Selection%202.jpg (Title Font Selection 2.jpg)

That means you'll have to locate the font file manually. (Without a font file, PDF's will use Arial, while Powerpoint will still use the font you selected).

You can click the "Manual Search" button, which will open the fonts folder on your computer:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/ufgZm7SIPe/Title%20Font%20Selection%203.jpg (Title Font Selection 3.jpg)

The name of the font is prefilled in the Filename area. In the example you can see two files for that font family. The actual number of files you'll find will depend on the font you selected (obviously).

Note: Even though there appears to be a folder "\Windows\Fonts" on your computer, that's a virtual folder. The files you see there cannot be embedded in a PDF, that's why by default the Fonts folder in AppData is opened.

After selecting the font file, you'll see something like this:

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/wuGqS3zSeN/resources/W84OSCVQ0i/Title%20Font%20Selection%204.jpg (Title Font Selection 4.jpg)

That means the font setup is complete.

Note: Puzzle Maker Pro will do its job even if you select a completely different font file. However, the results may not be what you expected.

Question 6

Can I use Arial (font) in my puzzle books?

Accepted Answer

Puzzle Maker Pro selects Arial as the default font to use for puzzles and puzzle books. A very relevant question is: Can you sell puzzle books where you use Arial to print all the letters and numbers?

Microsoft has a F.A.Q. section about this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/fonts/font-faq.

Long story short: You can use Arial in your puzzle books "Unless you are using an application that is specifically licensed for home, student, or non-commercial use, we do not restrict you from selling the things you print and make using the Windows-supplied fonts"

If you choose to use another font, always check with the creator of the font (Microsoft, for most standard fonts) if you have the right to publish books with this font.

Question 7

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 8

Sticker Factory (Plugin for Powerpoint) Tutorial Video

Accepted Answer

Sticker Factory (Plugin for Powerpoint) Tutorial Video

Question 9

Planner Links (Plugin for Powerpoint) Tutorial Video

Accepted Answer

Planner Links (Plugin for Powerpoint) Tutorial Video