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Publish a Puzzle Catalog: Export, Upload, and Show It on Your Site

Summary: Export an HTML puzzle batch from Puzzle Maker Pro, upload its zip to your WordPress site with the Puzzle Maker Pro Online plugin, and publish it as a playable page — on its own page or embedded anywhere with a shortcode.

Overview

This is the core workflow of Puzzle Maker Pro Online: take a set of puzzles you made in Puzzle Maker Pro and turn it into an interactive page your visitors can play. It has three parts — export the catalog from the desktop app, upload the zip into a Puzzle Catalog post, and show it on your site.

New to the plugin? Install it and try the bundled demo first with Install Puzzle Maker Pro Online and Try the Demo Puzzles.

What You Need

  • Puzzle Maker Pro with a module that exports an HTML / JSON catalog — for example Number Trail, Number Snake, Queens, or Binary. HTML and JSON output is a Productivity Edition feature; see [Puzzle Maker Pro Editions Explained]([/puzzle-maker-pro-editions/ – confirm slug]).
  • The Puzzle Maker Pro Online plugin installed and active on your WordPress site (see the install tutorial above).

Export the Catalog in Puzzle Maker Pro

  1. In Puzzle Maker Pro, set up your puzzles as usual and turn on HTML output (this also produces the catalog JSON the plugin reads).
  2. Create the puzzles. Puzzle Maker Pro writes a batch folder containing one catalog JSON plus one JSON file per puzzle.
  3. Zip the batch folder. You can zip the folder itself or just its contents — the plugin accepts both layouts.

The zip is what you will upload. It should contain the catalog JSON and the per-puzzle JSON files (and any puzzle images). You do not need to include index.html — the plugin renders the page itself and skips it on import.

Create a Puzzle Catalog Post and Upload the Zip

  1. In WordPress, go to Puzzle Catalogs → Add New.
  2. In the Catalog Upload box, drag your zip onto the drop zone (or click to choose the file).
  3. The moment you pick the file, an instant preflight check runs and shows what it found — the puzzle type(s), the puzzle count, the batch ID, and anything it will skip — before you save. If the zip is not a valid catalog, it tells you exactly why so you can fix it.
  1. Optionally add text above and below the puzzle in the Catalog Text box, then click Publish.

On publish, the plugin extracts the files, records the puzzle type(s), and files the post under catalog Categories and Tags automatically: a single-type catalog gets the type as its category and tag; a mixed catalog is filed under Mixed with each type as a tag. If you leave the title blank, it is filled in from the catalog’s own title.

Uploading a new zip to the same post replaces the old files; deleting the post removes them. Your puzzles are stored in your own site’s uploads folder.

Show the Catalog on Your Site

You have two ways to display a published catalog. One catalog plays per page — the engine mounts a single player, so put each catalog on its own page.

1. Its own page. Every Puzzle Catalog post already has a page at /puzzles/<slug>/. Just visit it — the player renders automatically, wrapped by any Catalog Text you added.

2. A shortcode, anywhere. To place the player inside another page or post, use a shortcode:

ShortcodeWhat it does
Embeds the catalog whose post ID is 123
Embeds the catalog by its slug

The post ID and a copy-ready shortcode are shown in the Shortcode column on the Puzzle Catalogs list, so you can copy the exact one.

To list several catalogs for visitors to browse, use

  • Number Detective — number-detective · 5 puzzles

    Cross out every number a clue rules out.

  • Couples — couples-puzzles · 5 puzzles

    Place one of each shape in every region

  • Block Views — block-views · 5 puzzles

    Which picture shows the top view of this building?

  • Color Nonogram — color-nonogram · 5 puzzles

    Fill the cells in the clue colours so every row and column matches its clues.

  • Nonogram — nonogram · 5 puzzles

    Fill the cells using the row and column clues

  • Cube Net Match — cube-net-match · 10 puzzles

    Fold the net in your mind. Which cube matches? (Or: which net folds into the cube?)

  • Cube Face Match — cube-face-match · 10 puzzles

    All the cubes show the same cube from different sides. Use them to answer the question.

  • Foldable Word Search — foldable-word-search · 1 puzzle

    Cut along the solid lines, fold on the dashed lines and glue each lettered tab under the edge with the same letter. Find the words. They run straight over the folds.

  • Foldable Mazes — foldable-maze · 5 puzzles

    Cut along the solid lines, fold on the dashed lines and glue each lettered tab under the edge with the same letter. Then find the way from the circle to the square. Numbered discs link the shapes of a maze chain: continue from the disc with the same number.

  • Tetromino — tetromino · 5 puzzles
  • Pentomino — pentomino · 5 puzzles
  • Quiz Builder Demo — quiz · 20 puzzles
  • Jigsaw Sudoku — jigsaw-sudoku · 5 puzzles
  • Killer Sudoku — killer-sudoku · 5 puzzles
  • Masyu – Pearl Logic Demo — masyu · 5 puzzles
  • Word Ladder Demo — word-ladder · 6 puzzles
  • Yin Yang Demo — yin-yang · 5 puzzles
  • Word Fill Demo — word-fill · 3 puzzles

    Fit every word into the grid

  • Block Fill Demo — block-fill · 3 puzzles

    Reassemble the blocks into the crossword grid

  • Number Block Fill Demo — number-block-fill · 3 puzzles

    Reassemble the blocks into the number grid

, which can be filtered by category, tag, or puzzle type and ordered by date or title — useful for a “Play our puzzles” index page.

Outcome

You can now take any HTML/JSON catalog from Puzzle Maker Pro, publish it on your WordPress site, and present it either on its own page or embedded with a shortcode. To build one collection out of several batches — or to mix puzzle types into a single catalog — continue with Combine Puzzle Sets with the Catalog Merge Tool.

Further Reading

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