Puzzle Maker Pro turns generated puzzles into a finished book in two ways. Instant Puzzle Books builds the whole interior from your settings in one pass. Puzzle Book Studio opens the same book as pages you can look at, change and rebuild. Both write print-ready PDF and PowerPoint files, and both can give the book a title page, a table of contents, and a footer on every puzzle and solution page that says where its counterpart lives. What differs is how much control you have between “generate” and “upload to KDP”.
The short answer is this. If every page of your book follows one pattern, use Instant Puzzle Books. If you want to see the pages before you render, change individual pages, or put more than one puzzle type in the same book, use Puzzle Book Studio. Instant Puzzle Books comes with every edition. Puzzle Book Studio starts at Creative, and combining several puzzle sets in one book takes Productivity.
How Instant Puzzle Books works
Instant Puzzle Books is settings first, then build. You set the book up once, tick Create Instant Puzzle Book on the main window, and click Create. Puzzle Maker Pro generates the puzzles and assembles the book in the same run. Every puzzle gets the same treatment.
The settings live under Settings → Instant Puzzle Books, and they cover everything that shapes the interior:
- Page Trim Size and Margins. Page width and height in inches, bleed on or off, and the four margins, with mirrored margins for facing pages.
- Page layout. How many puzzles share a page (rows by columns), whether solutions use the same grid or their own, and whether answers print right after each puzzle (Print Solutions With Puzzles) or together at the back (Puzzles First, Then Solutions).
- Page Numbering. On or off, the style, the position, and the start number.
- Content Pages. Switches for a title page, a table of contents, and a line in the contents for each solution section.
- Puzzle Area Settings. How each puzzle slot is divided into title, description, puzzle and footer, including Show page cross-references.
- Puzzle Book Typography. The fonts for titles, word lists, page numbers, the title page and the contents.
- Book Output Settings. PDF from puzzles, PDF from pages, PowerPoint, full-page images, and a KDP cover template.
Because the whole book comes from one set of settings, you review it by opening the file. PowerPoint is the easiest format for paging through a draft. If something is wrong, you change a setting and build again. That is a fast loop for a uniform book, and it is also the limit. Dropping one puzzle, retitling one page or reordering a section are page-level edits, and they belong to Studio. Your book settings save as a preset, so volume two can start from volume one’s layout.
How Puzzle Book Studio works
Puzzle Book Studio is a live editor for the same book. After Create, click Open Studio, or tick Open After Create and it opens by itself. The window has three parts. On the left, two linked trees show the book page by page (Book Structure) and by set and puzzle (Puzzle Sets). In the middle, a preview shows 1 Page, 2 Pages or Spread. Spread pairs the pages that face each other in print, which is the view to check before you upload an interior. On the right, a properties panel shows whatever you selected.
What you can do there that you cannot do in a settings-then-build run:
- Edit one puzzle. Change its title and description, or tick Hide in puzzle book to drop it from the book without regenerating anything.
- Edit one set. Hide the whole set, cap it with Limit puzzle count, or give it its own page layout with the custom layout buttons.
- Reorder. Within Sets and Entire Book shuffle the puzzles, and Restore Original Order puts them back.
- Write the pages around the puzzles. Select a page in the tree and edit it: the words on the title page, a copyright page, a “how to use this book” page. Add page puts a text page, a title-style page or a how-to-play page on a set or a section. A solution section can open with its own page, such as “Answers to Round 1”. Pages can be reordered, moved, duplicated, hidden, and listed in the table of contents.
- Catch problems early. A Warnings panel flags word lists that overflow or print too small, and puzzle images that have moved. Click a warning and Studio jumps to the page.
- Save the whole job. Save Project writes a
.pmpbookfile. Restore it later, hide the puzzles you no longer want, add new ones, and render again.
The book rebuilds itself about a second after your last edit, so you see each change in the preview. When the book is right, Render Book writes the same output formats Instant Puzzle Books does.
What both builders give you
Both builders can put a title page, a table of contents and a cross-reference footer in the book. You switch the first two on under Content Pages (Include a title page, Include a table of contents, List solution sections). You switch the footer on under Puzzle Area Settings with Show page cross-references. It is off until you turn it on. With it on, each puzzle says where its solution is, and each solution says where its puzzle is. The footer reserves 6% of the slot height unless you set another height, so the puzzle itself gets a little smaller.
Sample pages from the Puzzle Maker Pro book engine, using generated puzzles at 6 x 9 inches.
That is why the choice is not about front matter. Both do it. The choice is about who decides each page: your settings, or you.
Which edition gives you which builder
| Standard | Creative | Productivity | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instant Puzzle Books | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Puzzle Book Studio, one puzzle collection, every book feature | Yes | Yes | |
| Puzzle Book Studio, several collections in one book | Yes | ||
| Time Saver for batch production | Yes |
A few notes on that table:
- Creative is not a cut-down Studio. Fonts, titles, page numbers, layout, margins, trim size and content pages are all there. The only difference between Creative and Productivity is the number of collections in one book.
- A collection is one set of puzzles made with one set of settings. Ninety-six word searches are one collection. Add thirty sudoku and you have two. A book that combines separately generated sets needs Productivity.
- Some modules sell as the product plus Productivity only. In that case the base product carries what Creative carries elsewhere. Each module’s product page shows which editions it sells, and the editions page explains the tiers.
- Web play uses the combined Interactive editions. Creative + Interactive is Creative plus web play for that module; Productivity + Interactive is Productivity plus web play. They are not a fourth rung on the ladder and they do not change which book builder you have.
- Editions are bought per puzzle module. For a book that mixes modules, confirm what you own for each one.
All editions let you sell the finished books, worksheets and packs you make to your own readers and customers, on KDP, Etsy, Teachers Pay Teachers or your own store. Productivity adds the right to sell or supply the generated puzzles to other publishers and sellers. This is general publishing guidance, not legal advice, so read the licence itself before you plan around it.
Side by side
| Instant Puzzle Books | Puzzle Book Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| How you work | Set once, build, open the file | Compose live, preview every page, render |
| Puzzles per page, solutions per page | Yes, in the layout settings | Yes, same settings, plus a custom layout per set |
| Answers after each puzzle or at the back | Yes | Yes |
| Title page, contents, cross-reference footers | Yes | Yes |
| Write or edit text pages and section pages | Yes | |
| Hide, retitle or shuffle individual puzzles | Yes | |
| See pages before you render | Yes, in 1 Page, 2 Pages or Spread view | |
| Warnings for overflow and missing files | Yes | |
| Save and reopen the project | Settings save as a preset | Whole book saves as a .pmpbook file |
| More than one puzzle set in a book | Productivity | |
| Output formats | PDF, PowerPoint, page images, KDP cover template | The same |
| Comes with | Every edition | Creative and Productivity |
Worked scenario 1: a 96-puzzle single-type KDP book
You publish word search books, one theme per volume, all in the same format. The book is 8.5 x 11 inches, one word search per page, and the answers go at the back. This is the Instant Puzzle Books job, and the base edition of the module is enough.
Settings:
- Page Trim Size and Margins: 8.5 wide, 11 high.
- Page layout: puzzles in a grid of 1 row by 1 column. Untick Use Puzzles Layout for Solutions and set the solutions grid to 3 rows by 2 columns, six answers per page. Choose Puzzles First, Then Solutions.
- Content Pages: title page, table of contents and List solution sections on.
- Puzzle Area Settings: Show page cross-references on.
- Page Numbering: on.
- Book Output Settings: Create PDF from Puzzles and Create KDP Cover Templates.
- Set Quantity to 96, tick Create Instant Puzzle Book, and click Create.
The page math comes to 114 pages: 1 title page, 1 contents page, 96 puzzle pages, and 16 solution pages (96 divided by 6). The puzzles run from page 3 to page 98, and the answers start on page 99. Puzzle 40 is on page 42, its footer reads “Solution 40 on page 105”, and the solution page says “Puzzle 40 on page 42”.
Why 96 and not 100? A hundred puzzles would need 17 solution pages, with only four answers on the last one, and the book would total 119 pages. An odd total means a blank page somewhere. Ninety-six divides evenly into 16 answer pages and an even total, so you read the page count off the book and it is already right.
The KDP cover template is a PNG of back, spine and front with bleed and safe-zone guides. It is sized for your page count rounded up to a multiple of four, so this book gets a 116-page template, and the front panel says so. At 79 pages or more, KDP allows spine text, so a 114-page book has room for a title on the spine. Check KDP’s current cover guidelines before you design, because the template is a guide and not a cover.
Worked scenario 2: a mixed, themed gift book
Now the book is a 6 x 9 gift book with a garden theme. It has 24 word searches, then 30 sudoku, and it opens like a real book: a title page, a copyright page, a “how to use this book” page, and a contents page. The sudoku get their own title page, and each set of answers opens with a short introduction. That is more than one collection and more than settings, so it is the Productivity Studio job.
How you build it:
- Generate the word searches and click Create with New Book selected. Switch to the sudoku module and click Create with Current Book selected, so the new puzzles join the same project. Click Open Studio.
- In Book Settings, turn on the title page and table of contents, set the trim size to 6 x 9, and turn on Show page cross-references.
- Add a text page for the copyright and tick Before table of contents on its card. Add a “How to use this book” page and tick In table of contents.
- Select the sudoku set and use Add page to give it a title-style page. Give the set its own page layout, tick New Page Before Section in its puzzle grid, and set its solutions grid to 3 rows by 2 columns. The word searches keep a 2 by 2 solutions grid.
- Select each solution section and add its introduction page.
- Page through the book in Spread view, check the Warnings panel, and click Render Book.
The sudoku set starts its own section because its layout differs from the word searches. Its answers also form their own solution section, because its solutions grid differs. A set that shares its layout with the one before it folds into the same section, so use a custom layout whenever you want a set to start on its own.
The count comes to 72 pages:
| Part | Pages |
|---|---|
| Title, copyright, contents, how to use this book | 4 |
| 24 word searches, one per page | 24 |
| Sudoku title page | 1 |
| 30 sudoku, one per page | 30 |
| Word search answers: one introduction page, then 24 divided by 4 | 7 |
| Sudoku answers: one introduction page, then 30 divided by 6 | 6 |
| Total | 72 |
The contents page lists the how-to page on 4, the word searches on 5, the sudoku on 29, the word search solutions on 60 and the sudoku solutions on 67. A reader opening the Look Inside preview sees real structure, not a bare run of grids. With 72 pages the spine is under KDP’s 79-page minimum for spine text, so it stays blank, but it is still part of the cover template.
A shorter sample of the same structure, with six puzzles per set, so the page numbers differ from the 72-page example. The pages come from the Puzzle Maker Pro book engine.
Instant Puzzle Books is the wrong tool for this book. It applies one layout to every puzzle, and the page cards where you write the text and section pages live in Studio. Without Productivity, a book is also limited to one collection. For more on how a mixed interior fits together, see mixing puzzle types in one book.
Worked scenario 3: one type, but you proof every book
You publish large-print word searches, 72 to a volume, 8.5 x 11 inches, one per page, six answers per page. It is one puzzle type with one set of settings, so one collection, and Creative covers it. The reason to choose Studio here is the proof, not the structure.
The first draft is 88 pages: 4 front pages (title, copyright, contents, how to use this book), 72 puzzle pages, and 12 solution pages. You open it in Studio and the preview shows a few problems. The Warnings panel flags a word list that prints too small, so you widen the word list area, add a column or trim the list, because the font size follows the space the list has. Four puzzles have grids you do not like, so you tick Hide in puzzle book on each. Ten puzzles get friendlier titles, and you use Within Sets to shuffle the order so the hard ones are spread out.
The final book is 84 pages: 4 front pages, 68 puzzles, and 12 solution pages (68 divided by 6, rounded up). That is still above the 79-page spine text threshold, and the cover template is already a multiple of four. Each edit showed up in the preview about a second after you made it. In Instant Puzzle Books the same fixes mean changing settings and regenerating, and hiding or retitling a single puzzle is a Studio edit.
When to move from one tool to the other
Start with Instant Puzzle Books and move to Studio when one of these happens:
- A proof shows a page you want to drop or rename. Hiding and retitling are Studio edits.
- The book needs pages of its own. Copyright text, a how-to page, a section opener and an answers introduction are written on Studio’s page cards.
- You want to see the page before you render. Studio previews every page, and Spread view shows facing pages the way a reader sees them.
- A second puzzle type joins the book. That needs the multi-collection Studio in Productivity.
- You want to reuse a finished book. Save the
.pmpbook, hide last volume’s puzzles, add this volume’s, and render.
Go back to Instant Puzzle Books when a volume needs no hand work. A series of identical workbooks should come from a saved layout and a single build, and the saved preset does that job without opening an editor.
Which one for your kind of publishing
| If you are | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New to KDP, one puzzle type per book, uniform pages | The base edition of a module and Instant Puzzle Books | You set the book once, build it and upload it, and you learn the page math before you pay for editing tools. |
| A niche publisher who proofs every volume | Creative and Studio on one collection | You can hide, retitle, reorder and write text pages, with every book feature available. |
| A gift-book or anthology publisher with several puzzle types per book | Productivity | It puts several collections in one book, with section pages and sectioned answers. |
| A series publisher | Instant Puzzle Books for routine volumes, Studio for flagship ones | A saved layout makes routine volumes quick, and you can hand-finish the volumes that deserve it. |
| An Etsy or Teachers Pay Teachers seller of loose pages | Neither book builder to begin with | If you leave Create Instant Puzzle Book unticked, Create gives you one image per puzzle and one per solution. |
Whichever you pick, you can move up an edition later, so choose the one that fits the book you are making this month. The Look Inside article covers what the first pages of either kind of book have to show a shopper, and the which edition guide covers the rest of the ladder. To try the book path yourself, use the demo.