Introduction: Make Your Own "free" Sudoku Books

I love Sudoku, but I'm cheap. Sure, there are plenty of places on the net that I can do Sudoku for free. I could get five or ten puzzles a day. But not on the airplane when I fly every week. I need a book for that. But I'm cheap, remember?

Step 1: Gather Materials

You'll need a pencil and eraser for the puzzles, a binder clip for help with cutting and stapling, and a folder for the cover of your book.

Step 2: Make the Sudokus

Can't print what you haven't made yet, right? How to make a Sudoku? I use Simple Sudoku by Angus Johnson It lets you create Sudoku puzzles, and save them.

First, create a puzzle. Next, save it. You want to do this a lot. I like to create books of 40 puzzles. When you print them (coming up) they will be double sided, with four puzzles per side. My 40 puzzles become a 20 page book. You decide how many you want to make and print.

Step 3: Print Multiple Puzzles

This is the best part of the program. It lets you print all the puzzles you just created--four to a page. From the File menu, choose Print> then Multiple Puzzles....

An Open File type dialog will pop up. Select all the puzzles you created in the last step, and click on Open.

The printer dialog box will pop up. Set the printer to print double sided, if you can. If not, you can do half your puzzles in one print, flip the paper, and print the other half. Or, you could just print it one sided. Doesn't really matter.

Step 4: Now You've Got Your Puzzles

Here are my puzzles

Step 5: Cut the Puzzles

1) Cut them in half, lengthwise, any way you can. I like the big old fashioned paper cutters. You can use what you want.

2) Cut them in half again. You'll end up with two lengths of paper, so you'll need to even them up.

3) Cut them to even them up.

Step 6: Prep the Cover

This is where the binder clip comes in use.

1) Stack the puzzles close to the edge, right in the fold of the folder.

2) Close the folder and use the binder clip to hold it all together.

3) Cut the folder. I used my fingers to feel where the puzzles ended, and I had to insert them under the red bar from the right.

4) Cut the folder again. Same steps as before.

5) Here's what it looks like when you're done cutting.

Step 7: Staple

Staple it.

Step 8: You're Done!

That's it! You're done! (Take of the binder clip, first!)

I fold over the folder cover to make playing easier.

There is one draw back. Some of the puzzles will be upside down. You'll have to play with the binding towards you, instead of away from you. Small price to pay.

Step 9: One Last Thing

When I started doing this, I used some PDFs I downloaded from http://www.krazydad.com. He offers PDFs with 200 puzzles in them at each of three or four levels. Using them, you're better off stapling on the side instead of the top and bottom, but the steps are otherwise the same.