Printable Binary Puzzles

Choose a size, a level and how many, and print. The puzzles go on one set of pages and the answers on another, so a sheet cannot spoil itself.

What actually comes out of the printer

Six puzzles to a batch by default, two to a row, at a cell size that leaves room to write. The answers are printed after them on their own pages rather than beside them — a page that carries a puzzle and its solution within eye-shot is not a printable puzzle, it is a spoiler with extra steps.

Nothing on the page is a screenshot. Each grid is a real table drawn by the same renderer that draws the board you play on, so it prints at whatever resolution your printer runs at and stays crisp on paper rather than turning into a grey approximation of itself.

The interface, the navigation and the controls are all removed from the print output entirely rather than merely hidden. A hidden element still occupies space and still paginates, which is how a one-page sheet becomes one page of puzzles followed by three blank ones — a defect worth naming because it is the single most common thing wrong with printable puzzles online.

Choosing what to print

For a classroom or a waiting room, 6×6 easy is the right answer almost every time. It fits eight to a double-sided sheet, takes two or three minutes each, and needs only the two pair techniques — which can be explained in about a minute and are on the technique page if you would rather hand that over than say it.

For a long journey, 10×10 or 12×12 at medium is the sweet spot. Big enough to take real time, small enough that the grid does not become an exercise in not losing your place, and counting-level difficulty keeps it moving without demanding a pencil-and-paper analysis of every line.

Print hard and expert at 8×8 or larger. A 6×6 expert exists and is generated honestly, but the third rule has very little room to work with in six columns, and the result tends to be one sharp moment surrounded by ordinary play rather than a sustained puzzle.

Every printed puzzle carries the same proof

Printed puzzles come from the same generator as the ones on screen and are held to the same standard: exactly one solution, and finishable by reasoning alone at the level printed on it. There is no separate, sloppier path for paper.

That matters more on paper than on a screen, because paper has no undo. A printed puzzle with two solutions wastes an afternoon and there is no way to find out that it was the puzzle at fault. This is also why the answer sheet is printed by default rather than offered as an extra.

Common questions

Everything else on the site

• Daily puzzleA new grid every day
• Binary puzzleUnlimited grids
• The rulesThree rules, in full
• How to solveA 6×6, worked
• TechniquesThe whole ladder
• Doubles and sandwichesTechnique — easy
• Counting a lineTechnique — medium
• Line analysisTechnique — hard
• Twin eliminationTechnique — expert
• The assumptionTechnique — refused
• Daily archiveEvery past day