Summary: Simple Math makes arithmetic practice sheets — one skill per sheet, numbered problems in neat columns, and a matching answer key. This walkthrough covers choosing the skill and difficulty, controlling carrying and borrowing, picking a one-line or stacked layout, sizing the sheet, and adding optional cut-out answer tiles.
Overview
A Simple Math sheet drills one thing at a time: multiplication facts, division facts, a mix of the two, addition or subtraction within 1,000, multiplying by multiples of ten, or four-digit addition within 10,000. You choose the skill, the generator picks the numbers inside the range that skill and difficulty allow, and every Create gives you the worksheet plus its answer key as a separate image.
Three settings do most of the teaching work: Skill decides what is practised, Difficulty decides how big the numbers get, and Carrying / borrowing decides whether addition and subtraction problems need regrouping. Everything else — layout, problem count, columns, tiles — is about how the page looks and how it is used.
Required Modules
Math Mystery — Simple Math opens from the Math menu with every Math Mystery edition. A free demo lets you try the settings first; it makes one watermarked sheet at a time.
Math Mystery makes every Simple Math worksheet in this tutorial, exports JPG, PNG, SVG and print PDF with answer keys, and includes Instant Puzzle Books and Puzzle Book Studio for one collection. Creative adds Bar Model Math and your own themes elsewhere in Math Mystery. Productivity adds Time Saver for batch runs with several setups, JSON export, and Puzzle Book Studio Productivity, which combines several collections into one book. You can move up to any higher edition later. See Puzzle Maker Pro Editions Explained.
Commercial rights: Math Mystery and Math Mystery Creative both let you sell the finished books, worksheets and packs you make to your own readers and customers, including KDP, Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Productivity includes that, plus selling or supplying the generated puzzles to other publishers and sellers.
Preparation
Decide which skill and difficulty the sheets are for, and roughly how many sheets the book or pack needs. Image size and file formats are set on the Output Settings tab at the top of the main window; the book’s trim size is set later on the Instant Puzzle Books tab or in Puzzle Book Studio.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Open Simple Math
Go to Math menu → Simple Math. Every worksheet setting in this tutorial sits on the Main tab, in this order: Skill, Problems, Columns, Layout, Carrying / borrowing, Difficulty, then the two tile options. Style and Layout are the shared tabs you already know.
Choose the Skill
The Skill list offers seven skills. The ranges below are the numbers the generator actually uses at each difficulty (Easy / Medium / Hard):
- Multiplication facts — times-table facts. Both factors from 1 to 5, 1 to 9 or 1 to 12.
- Division facts — the matching division facts, always exact. The divisor and the answer each run 1 to 5, 1 to 9 or 1 to 12, so the largest number divided is 25, 81 or 144.
- Mixed multiplication and division — each problem is either a multiplication or a division fact, using the same ranges.
- Addition within 1,000 — adding two numbers from 1 to 99, 1 to 499 or 1 to 999; the sum never goes above 1,000.
- Subtraction within 1,000 — both numbers from 1 to 99, 1 to 499 or 1 to 999, the larger one always first, so no answer is negative.
- Multiply by multiples of ten — a single-digit number times 10, 20, 30 … 90. The single digit runs 2 to 5, 2 to 7 or 2 to 9; the multiples of ten are the same at every level.
- Addition within 10,000 — adding two four-digit numbers. Both start at 1,000 and go up to 4,999, 6,999 or 8,999; the sum is never more than 10,000.
Multiplication facts at Medium is the default.
Layout starts on Automatic, which follows the skill: the addition and subtraction skills print stacked for column arithmetic, and the multiplication and division skills print on one line.
Pick the difficulty by what the child already knows, not by age or school year:
- Multiplication facts, Division facts and Mixed multiplication and division — Easy uses factors up to 5, Medium up to 9 and Hard up to 12, so Easy is for children starting the times tables and Hard is fluency practice and review.
- Addition within 1,000 and Subtraction within 1,000 — Easy stays within two-digit numbers (up to 99); Medium and Hard bring in three-digit numbers.
- Multiply by multiples of ten — for children who know their facts and are moving on to tens, such as 4 x 30.
- Addition within 10,000 — four-digit addition for children who are confident with three-digit column addition.
Set the Problem Count and Columns
Problems sets how many problems go on one sheet, from 1 to 60 (default 12). Columns sets how many columns they are laid out in, from 1 to 6 (default 3); the rows follow from the two. Twelve problems in three columns gives four rows, as in the multiplication sheet above; nine stacked problems in three columns gives a three-by-three page.
Stacked problems take more room than one-line problems, so a full page of stacked sums usually wants fewer problems than a fact drill. The generator avoids repeating a problem within one Create, so a narrow range holds fewer problems: Multiplication facts at Easy has 25 different facts. If you ask for more than a setup can supply, the run tells you instead of padding the sheet.
Choose the Layout
Layout decides how each problem prints:
- Automatic (stacked for addition and subtraction) — the default: stacked for Addition within 1,000, Subtraction within 1,000 and Addition within 10,000, one line for every other skill.
- One line — the whole problem on one line with a blank to write on, such as
6 x 3 = ______. This is the standard look for fact drills. - Stacked (one number above the other) — the worksheet form for column arithmetic: the numbers stacked and lined up on their ones column, a rule beneath, and space for the answer under the rule. This is the conventional layout for Addition within 1,000, Subtraction within 1,000 and Addition within 10,000.
Every problem is numbered automatically — 1), 2), 3) and so on, reading across each row. On one-line problems the number starts the line; on stacked problems it sits in the top-left corner of the problem. The numbers print on the answer key too, so marking is a matter of reading down the list.
Control Carrying and Borrowing
Carrying / borrowing sets whether addition and subtraction problems need regrouping:
- Any (the default) — mixes problems with and without carrying or borrowing.
- Never — every problem can be done column by column with no carrying (addition) or borrowing (subtraction). Use it for a class that has not been taught regrouping yet.
- Always — every problem needs at least one carry or borrow. Use it to practise exactly that step.
A natural teaching sequence is Never while the column method is new, Always once regrouping is taught, then Any for mixed review. This setting applies to Addition within 1,000, Subtraction within 1,000 and Addition within 10,000; the multiplication, division and times-ten skills ignore it, so you can leave it on Any for those. The stacked sheet above uses Always: every problem carries at least once.
Set the Difficulty
Difficulty — Easy, Medium or Hard — moves only how big the numbers get, using the ranges listed under Choose the Skill. It is a separate dial from carrying and borrowing, so you can make an Easy addition sheet that always carries, or a Hard one that never does. Medium is the default.
To differentiate, make three runs of the same skill at Easy, Medium and Hard and give each group its own set: the sheets look the same, so no group stands out, but each works at its own range.
Add Answer Tiles (Optional)
Tick Print answer tiles to add a band of tiles below the problems, one per problem, holding the answers in shuffled order. It turns the sheet into a cut-and-match activity: the child works each problem, then finds and crosses off — or cuts out and sticks down — the tile with that answer.
With tiles on, every answer on the sheet is different, so no two tiles are the same. That caps the problem count at the number of different answers the skill and difficulty can produce, and the run names that number if you go over it. Raising the difficulty, or reducing the problem count, fixes it.
Add the Unmatched Extra Tile (Optional)
Unmatched extra tile works together with Print answer tiles and adds one tile that matches no problem. With exactly one tile per problem, the last tile always fits, so a child who got an answer wrong still ends with a tidy, finished-looking sheet. With the extra tile, a correct sheet ends with exactly one tile left over; a wrong answer leaves two, and the mistake shows up.
The extra tile is chosen from numbers the skill could produce, never one of the sheet’s answers, and the generator steers it away from the common slips it checks for, such as an off-by-one or a forgotten carry, so a typical wrong answer is unlikely to land on it. On the answer key, the extra tile is ringed. It needs a little spare room in the range: if a setup has none, the run says so and suggests fewer problems or a higher difficulty.
Check the Answer Key
Every sheet comes with its answer key as a separate image: on one-line problems the answer is written in place of the blank; on stacked problems it sits under the rule.
Style the Page
The Style tab sets the Canvas colour, the Cell fill, the Rule line under stacked problems, the Answer tile border (the cut line around each tile) and one font control that restyles the problems, answers, tile numbers and problem numbers together. When the sheet looks right, save the whole setup — skill, layout, difficulty and style — as a preset with the preset buttons at the top of the Simple Math screen, the same toolbar as in your other modules. The full styling workflow is in How to Customize Puzzle Designs in Puzzle Maker Pro.
Set the Title
Titles live on the Layout tab. Smart Titles fills in the title from each sheet’s own settings, using the same skill name as the Skill list. Simple Math offers (examples for a Medium multiplication sheet):
- Custom — your own text (the default)
- Simple Math — e.g. “Simple Math”
- Simple Math Skill — e.g. “Simple Math Multiplication facts”
- Simple Math Difficulty — e.g. “Simple Math Medium”
- Simple Math Skill Difficulty — e.g. “Simple Math Multiplication facts Medium”
- Skill — e.g. “Multiplication facts”
- Difficulty — e.g. “Medium”
- Skill Difficulty — e.g. “Multiplication facts Medium”
On an addition sheet the same options read, for example, “Addition within 1,000” or “Simple Math Addition within 1,000 Hard”. The same options fill the description, whose default reads “Work out each problem and write the answer on the line.” How the control works is covered once in How to Create Smart Puzzle Titles in Puzzle Maker Pro. The Layout tab also holds the crop control and a Use branding toggle (off unless you turn it on) that paints your branding template onto this collection’s sheets.
Generate and Export
Set the number of sheets in the quantity box, then use the Preview and Create buttons at the bottom of the main window: Preview shows one sheet, Create makes the full run, each sheet with its answer key, in the formats ticked on the Output Settings tab (JPG or PNG, plus SVG and print PDF if you want them).
Scale Up to a Book or Pack
On every edition, Instant Puzzle Books (its own tab at the top of the main window) turns a run into a book PDF with your trim size, margins and page layout, and Puzzle Book Studio assembles a collection into a finished interior with the answer keys at the back.
On Productivity, Time Saver runs several setups in one pass — one row per sheet setup, for example ten multiplication sheets, ten division sheets and ten stacked addition sheets with carrying for a mixed practice book — and Puzzle Book Studio Productivity combines those collections into one book. See How to Batch Create Puzzles with Time Saver.
Simple Math Inside Math Mystery
The same skills also appear in Math Mystery as section skills — Multiplication facts, Addition within 1,000 and the rest — printed in the layout you choose, but with Math Mystery’s own tile band, where solving every problem crosses off every tile but one. If you want a sheet that ends in a reveal rather than a plain answer check, read How to Create Math Mystery Worksheets in Puzzle Maker Pro.
Outcome
You have a run of numbered arithmetic worksheets, each drilling one skill at the difficulty and carrying rule you chose, in a one-line or stacked layout, with an answer key for every sheet — and, if you switched them on, cut-out answer tiles with an extra tile that makes the sheet check itself. Drop the run into Instant Puzzle Books or Puzzle Book Studio for a print-ready workbook or printable pack.
FAQ
How do I make addition worksheets without carrying?
Choose Addition within 1,000 (or Addition within 10,000), set Carrying / borrowing to Never, and leave Layout on Automatic, so the problems print stacked. Every problem can then be added column by column with no carry.
Can I print the answer key on its own?
Yes. Each sheet and its answer key are separate images, so you can print the keys for yourself and hand out only the worksheets; in a Puzzle Book Studio book the keys go at the back.
Why did the run stop when I raised the problem count?
It does not shorten a sheet on its own: if a setup cannot supply the count, the run stops with a message instead. The generator avoids repeating a problem within one Create, and with answer tiles on every answer must also be different (the message then names the largest count that fits), so small ranges such as Easy multiplication or division hold fewer problems. Raise the difficulty or lower the problem count.
What is the unmatched extra tile for?
It makes the sheet self-checking. A correct sheet leaves exactly one tile uncrossed; if two are left, one of the answers is wrong.
Does Difficulty change the carrying?
No. Difficulty only changes how large the numbers are; Carrying / borrowing is a separate setting, so any difficulty can be combined with Any, Never or Always.
Further Reading
- How to Create Math Mystery Worksheets in Puzzle Maker Pro
- How to Create Fraction Worksheets with Visual Fractions in Puzzle Maker Pro
- How to Create Word Problem Worksheets with Story Math in Puzzle Maker Pro
- How to Customize Puzzle Designs in Puzzle Maker Pro
- How to Batch Create Puzzles with Time Saver