Sudoku-Solving Overlay

I’ve created the printable image below to help solve Sudokus. It does not automate or otherwise add any intelligence or strategy to the solving process… it simply makes your process more orderly and efficient. As you get to the point where a puzzle is down to one available answer cell at a time, the overlay will help your search.

Printable overlay to help solve Sudokus… a set of 4 accounting grids for the numbers you have found.

Who It’s For

I imagine that experts have no need for it. But hypothetically, let’s say someone required you to solve a Sudoku and you had no experience. Using this overlay would be your best option. You capture every fact in a perfectly efficient manner, and proceed to search for new facts.

Printing Size

The overlay was created for the Sudoku in the Philadelphia Inquirer, which prints the puzzle at a size of 60mm high by 62mm wide. The art was created in Figma and it seems to have rendered it at 100 pixels per printed inch when I simply exported it from Figma and printed it without any scaling specification. I presume it will take experimentation to print it for other grid dimensions. Feel free to post helpful comments.

My Interest

I’m no Sudoku expert; in fact, I’m not serious about them at all. I just wanted to prove that I solve 4-star puzzles if I was organized enough. I guess I was also curious if there are Sudokus that require more intricate logic than just row/column/block process-of-elimination… multiple if-then-else sort of nonsense. I’m guessing not, but maybe my newspaper doesn’t offer those. Whatever.

Use

1. Cut out the gray area, throw that away, and tape down the remaining portion, aligned to the right and bottom of the Sudoku grid.
2. Methodically cross off (or ideally black out) all of the numbers used in every row, column, and block… and the tally of each numeral used.
   
   As you do that, point and hold your finger at each cell as you mark it off in the four grids. Don’t stop for any interruptions, or backtracking gets difficult.
3. Now you’ve got a chart with all of the original numbers blacked out and tallied.
4. Look at the rows/columns/blocks/tallies for those that have the most numbers blacked out. Examine that aspect of the grid for remaining cells that can be solved.
5. Then resort to your routine process of examining rows/columns/blocks/numbers to find answers.
6. When you find a new number, black it out of the four grids.

Filling in the grid is a lot of work, but when the puzzle starts getting harder and harder, and ultimately when there’s only ONE cell at-a-time that is solvable, the grids will help you find those critical cells.