Both of these turn a phrase into a cipher page, and a shopper can tell them apart at a glance. One prints a quotation in a substitution code with a row of blanks to write the answer in. The other prints a lettered grid, a legend, and a string of coordinate pairs.
Which one you print decides what the sample page promises, what the solver actually does, and how much of the difficulty you control from the settings rather than from the word list.
What each page looks like
Easy Cryptograms prints a phrase from your list as a cryptoquote: a quotation in a substitution cipher where the solver works out which letter stands for which. The coded line and a blank writing row stack together, and Puzzle / Code Placement decides the order: Puzzle On Top, the default, puts the blanks above the code.
Box Code prints a Polybius box — a grid where every letter sits at a unique row-and-column address, so the phrase can be written as a string of coordinate pairs. The default box is five rows by six columns. The spinners go up to 15 a side, but the box that actually prints is between three and twelve, and it needs a spare cell beyond the 26 letters. The app enforces that by raising the other side’s minimum as you go. The classical five-by-five square is two cells short, which is why the default is five by six.
If the sample page has to say decode this quotation, that is Easy Cryptograms. If it has to say look these coordinates up, that is Box Code.
What the solver does
An Easy Cryptograms page is letter substitution: the solver maps code back to letters and writes the quotation out. The sentence checks itself, which is the quiet virtue of the format: a half-decoded line that reads as nonsense tells the solver to go back, without any key.
A Box Code page is coordinate lookup: the solver reads each pair, finds that cell in the legend, and writes the letter. Turn Display Encoding off and the legend ships blank, which adds a first job: reconstruct the key, then decode. How much of a job depends on Randomize. Leave the letters in alphabetical order and the box gives itself away from the grid size and a single anchor; shuffle them and reconstructing the key is the puzzle. That is a setting on the same product, not a second one to buy.
The keys differ accordingly. An Easy Cryptograms key is the decoded quotation and, when the key table prints, the substitution that produced it. A Box Code key is the filled letters for those pairs, and if you shipped the legend blank, the completed legend as well.
The settings that set the difficulty
This is where the two products stop being interchangeable, because Easy Cryptograms puts the difficulty in the algorithm and Box Code puts it in the legend.
Easy Cryptograms opens on Caesar Code, which shifts every letter the same number of positions, with a Fixed Shift of 3. The alternative is Random Letter Exchange, a full random mapping with no pattern to spot. Three more controls move the solve:
- Code Variation only does anything once you switch to Random Shift or Random Letter Exchange. With a fixed shift there is nothing to vary, so the setting is ignored. It ships as Fixed (for all words), so one code covers the whole run; Vary Per Set and Vary Per Word/Phrase re-randomize as you go, so the solver cannot carry anything forward. Vary Per Word/Phrase also puts one puzzle on a page, which changes the page count of the book.
- Output Style ships as Letters (A-Z). Switching to Numbers (A=1, B=2, …) or Double-Digit Numbers (A=01, B=02, …) changes the look of the page as much as the difficulty: a numeric page reads as a code, a lettered one reads as a quotation.
- Print Key Table is on out of the box, printing two lines at the bottom of the page — half the alphabet each, over an empty row for the solver to fill in as they work. It is a scratch grid, not a hint, and turning it off takes that working space away — and takes the substitution off the answer page with it. What puts letters into it is Print All Hints in Puzzle (Kids’ Puzzles), which fills the whole table so every letter’s code is on the page, or Add Clues — off by default, three when you switch it on — which supplies a handful and leaves the rest.
Box Code has no shift to tune. Its levers are the box dimensions, whether the letters sit in the box in order or shuffled (Randomize, off by default), whether the legend prints filled or blank, and what the coordinates are made of: Numbers by default, with Letters, color shapes and images as the alternatives. The letters in the table stay letters; it is the row and column labels, and the coordinate pairs above the answer boxes, that change. That choice needs Box Code Creative or Box Code Productivity — on the entry Box Code edition the control is disabled and the coordinates stay numeric.
Which one suits the listing
Reach for Easy Cryptograms when the cover says cryptogram, cryptoquote or secret message and you have quotations or phrases worth reading. It wants a quotation legible at print size, which is a real constraint for a paperback interior. A Teachers Pay Teachers worksheet is one quote page and its key; an Etsy printable pack is a short themed run of the same pages — see selling puzzle printables on Etsy for how those listings differ from a KDP interior.
Reach for Box Code when the listing shows a box and a legend and the appeal is the lookup rather than the language. It works with single words and short phrases, and picture coordinates turn the same mechanic into something a much younger solver can do. The live Box Code product page walks the edition split; box-code-polybius-printable goes further into printable pack layout for that grid.
One difference worth knowing before you promise anything in a listing: Box Code Productivity exports Customer JSON — the puzzle data files for your own apps and workflows — for puzzles whose coordinates use numbers or letters. A box addressed by color shapes or images is print-only on the desktop path for now. Easy Cryptograms has no hosted play on the product page, so keep its listings to printed pages; you still get the usual static exports (images, print PDF, and slide decks).
Picture, Alphabet and Symbol Cryptograms are separate products that print an image key in place of letters or numbers. They are not modes of Easy Cryptograms, and buying one does not include the others.
One look per listing
A cipher listing sells one promise, and the sample has to keep it. Decide the code style before you write the title, then say it there: Cryptograms with the key table and Cryptograms, no key are two different books for two different buyers, and so are a Box Code pack with a printed legend and one that makes the solver deduce it. The same goes for grade band — a Kids’ Puzzles page with every hint printed and a cold adult quote with no key table should not share a file.
A pack titled “secret codes” that opens on a quotation and drops a coordinate grid halfway through is two products sharing a thumbnail. A book that mixes puzzle types deliberately is a different format and works, because the cover said so. How a book interior, a printable pack, a worksheet, and an embeddable puzzle differ as products is spelled out in Interiors vs printables vs worksheets vs embeddable puzzles.
What done looks like
- Page one matches the listing name: a quotation with a writing row, or a grid with a legend and its pairs.
- For Easy Cryptograms, the listing states the code style — letters, A=1, or A=01 — and whether the key table prints.
- For Box Code, it states the legend type and whether the legend arrives filled or blank.
- Every key is complete and paired to its puzzle, and placed where the channel expects: at the back of a book, a key file or key pages inside a pack, one clean key page with each worksheet. Puzzle book answer keys goes into the placement.
- You have read every quotation and word yourself. The generator enciphers what you give it; it does not check whether you want it in print.
The whole point
Easy Cryptograms prints a substitution quotation and hides its difficulty in the algorithm — the shift, how often it changes, and whether the key table prints at all. Box Code prints coordinate pairs against a legend and hides its difficulty in the legend itself. Pick the one whose sample page makes the promise your listing is making, set the two or three controls that move the solve, and print it.
Every paid Puzzle Maker Pro edition lets you sell the finished books, worksheets, and packs you make to your own readers and customers. Productivity adds the right to sell or supply the generated puzzles to other publishers, businesses and sellers.
Other puzzles you might like
If you are still choosing between word-based puzzle types, choosing word puzzle types places cryptograms beside word searches, crosswords, and the other quote-driven modules. For classroom listings built around quote decoding, the TPT secret code and cryptogram worksheets guide sizes a single-page worksheet and its key. When the listing is the coordinate grid rather than the quotation, start from the Box Code product page and export a sample legend page before you write the title.