Cryptograms

At a glance

• Cost: each cryptogram uses 1 page from your balance. Solution pages and exporting are free. The free trial includes 40 pages. See Pages & billing.
• Size: up to 100 cryptograms per book, one quote each, with no repeats. Three difficulty levels, four KDP trim sizes.
• Quotes: from a built-in collection. Nothing to type, and no AI.
• Where it lands: the standard editor, ready to review and export.

Make a cryptogram book

1. 1

   Open the Cryptogram wizard

   In the left menu, click Book Generation to expand it, then click Cryptogram Books. You can also start from Paige’s product chooser: under Puzzle books, click the Cryptogram card and then Next.

   

2. 2

   Name the book and pick how many cryptograms

   In Project title, type your book’s title (up to 100 characters). It starts as “Cryptogram Volume 1”.

   Under Number of cryptograms, pick any count up to 100. Each cryptogram uses a different quote, and the collection holds 169. The default is 20. You can also type a number in the box after “or”, or drag the slider. The line underneath reads “Each cryptogram uses 1 page. Solutions are free. You have N pages.”

3. 3

   Check the corpus and choose a difficulty

   Corpus is the quote collection the book draws from. Each card shows the collection’s name, how many quotes it has, and its licence:

   • Historical quotes (169 quotes, Public Domain)

   Under Difficulty, choose how much help solvers get:

   • Easy: ~30% letters revealed. Roughly 3 in 10 of the different letters in each quote are filled in as hints.
   • Medium: ~15% letters revealed (the default).
   • Hard: no hints. Solvers work it out from scratch.

   The sample on the right shows a quote at the level you picked. Click New sample to step through other quotes. The sample is free.

   

4. 4

   Pick the solutions layout and trim size

   Scroll down to Solutions per page and choose 1 per page (full size, easiest to read) or 4 per page (a 2×2 grid that saves paper). You can’t change this after the book is made.

   Under Trim size, pick 8.5 × 11 (the default), 8 × 10, 7 × 10, or 6 × 9 inches to match your KDP trim.

   Name pattern sets how pages are numbered: Sequential (“Cryptogram 1”, “Cryptogram 2”, …) or Roman (“Cryptogram I”, “Cryptogram II”, …); solutions follow the same pattern. Font sets the typeface for the puzzles and solutions: Helvetica, Times or Courier. The PDF embeds a matching open font (Arimo, Tinos or Cousine) so KDP accepts the file.

5. 5

   Generate the book

   Click Generate book — uses N pages at the bottom of the card. Cryptograms are fast, and a whole book usually finishes in one go. Keep the tab open until it does.

   When it’s done you’ll see “Cryptogram book generated” and go straight to the editor. Each cryptogram made uses 1 page from your balance.

6. 6

   Review the book in the editor

   The editor opens on Cryptogram 1. Each letter of the quote appears as a code letter with a blank line underneath for the solver’s answer. Hint letters are already filled in on their lines. The page strip along the bottom holds every cryptogram first, then the solutions. These tiles show a page number instead of a picture, so click one to see the page.

   The editor shows only the first few lines of a long quote and leaves out who said it. The exported PDF prints the whole quote with its attribution underneath. Cryptogram pages can’t be edited. You can drag pages in the strip to reorder them, and add a frame from the right sidebar’s Border section.

   

   

7. 7

   Adding more cryptograms (read this first)

   In the left sidebar, click Cryptogram to open its panel. The Coloring Page panel is open by default. New cryptograms use the book’s difficulty. Choose How many and click Add to book.

   Added cryptograms can repeat quotes

   Adding more draws again from the same 169-quote collection, without skipping quotes already in your book, so you’ll likely get repeats. A second volume reuses the same collection too. For a clean book, generate all the cryptograms you need in one go (100 at most).

   

8. 8

   Export the PDF

   Click Export PDF in the top bar. Each cryptogram page prints the full encoded quote and its attribution. After the puzzles comes a page titled Solutions, then the solved quotes. Exporting doesn’t use your balance. After a print-ready export, the Upload to Amazon KDP guide opens.

   Trial downloads are watermarked previews. The print-ready file comes with your plan, or unlock one book for $24.

Good to know

• Page count. KDP paperbacks need at least 24 interior pages. Your book has one page per cryptogram, plus 1 for the Solutions title page, plus the solution pages (one per cryptogram, or a quarter as many at 4 per page). The total is rounded up to an even number. For example, 20 cryptograms at 4 solutions per page print as 26 pages, using 20 from your balance.
• One kind of puzzle per book. A cryptogram book only holds cryptograms. You can’t add them to a coloring book.

If something goes wrong

• “This book needs N pages; you have M. Reduce the count or get more pages.” Lower the number of cryptograms, or click the button in the red box to get more: Upgrade now on a trial, Upgrade plan on a plan.
• Generate book is greyed out with no message. The Project title is empty. Type a title.
• “Generation failed” with “Start your free 7-day trial to use puzzle books…” or “Your free trial has ended…” Puzzle books need an active trial or plan. Start one from the Billing page and try again.
• “Could not add cryptograms” with “…has only 100 quotes; reduce count to that or fewer.” In the sidebar panel, choose 100 or fewer.