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
- In Puzzle Maker Pro, set up your puzzles as usual and turn on HTML output (this also produces the catalog JSON the plugin reads).
- Create the puzzles. Puzzle Maker Pro writes a batch folder containing one catalog JSON plus one JSON file per puzzle.
- 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
- In WordPress, go to Puzzle Catalogs → Add New.
- In the Catalog Upload box, drag your zip onto the drop zone (or click to choose the file).
- 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.
- 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:
| Shortcode | What 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.
Screenshot to capture (see shot-list.md):
02-published-page.png, the published catalog page with the player and puzzle picker.
To list several catalogs for visitors to browse, use , 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.