What is a logic grid puzzle?

It is a deduction puzzle, sometimes called a logic problem or a zebra puzzle. A short scene sets up a few categories, such as five neighbours, their houses, their pets and what they drink. A list of clues tells you how those fit together without ever telling you an answer outright. You tick and cross a grid until only one arrangement survives.

Is this logic grid generator free?

Yes. Pick a grade, generate a puzzle and print it with its answer, with no sign-up and no watermark. It is free for classroom, home and personal use.

How do I use the grid?

Each block of the staircase pairs two categories. When a clue rules something out, cross that cell. When it pins something down, tick it and cross the rest of that row and column. The step people miss is the one across blocks: if Alice is in house three, then whatever is true of house three is true of Alice, so you can copy a whole row from one block into another.

Will I ever have to guess?

No. Every puzzle here is checked twice before it prints: once to confirm the clues allow only one arrangement, and once to confirm that arrangement can be reached by reasoning alone. A logic grid you have to guess at is not a hard one, it is a broken one, so a board that fails the second check is thrown away.

Why are there so few clues?

Because the extra ones are taken out. A clue list that merely works is easy to make and it is a worse puzzle: it is usually around twenty clues, several of which follow from the others. Every clue here is offered for removal in turn, and kept only if the puzzle breaks without it, which on the wider boards takes that twenty down to about thirteen.

Which sizes fit which paper?

The free tool prints at 8.25 by 11 inches, which holds every grade. On a smaller page the grid and the clue list start to compete, so our Publisher Studio only offers the grades a trim can really carry: the hardest needs roughly 6.7 by 9.6 inches or larger. Studio exports at any KDP trim, from 5.06 by 7.81 up to 8.27 by 11.69, as a print-ready 300 DPI interior.

Free tool

Free logic grid generator, with the answer

Pick a size and generate a logic grid puzzle, then print it with its answer table. Every puzzle closes by reasoning alone, with no sign-up and no watermark. It runs on the same engine as our KDP Publisher Studio.

Difficulty

A harder grade adds a category and drops the clues that hand you a square for free. The clue list is then cut back until not one clue can go, so nothing on the page is deducible from the rest.

3 categories, 5 each, 8 clues. Read the clues, tick and cross the grid, and work out which of each category goes with which. Nothing here needs a guess.

Two pages: the puzzle and its answer. Every puzzle closes by reasoning alone, proved by the same engine as our KDP studio.

Want the whole book?

This makes one puzzle. Sign up to turn it into a full logic grid book for Amazon KDP: hundreds of graded puzzles at any trim, as print-ready PDFs.

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Preview

The puzzle and its answer table, as they print.

Logic Grid Medium

Six neighbours live along one side of Alder Street, counting up from the corner.
The dog owner is somewhere to the left of Dev.
The dog owner is not Clara.
Dev is somewhere to the left of Bram.
The tortoise owner is not Bram.
The tortoise owner is somewhere to the left of the cat owner.
The dog owner is two places to the left of Esme.
House 3 is either the dog owner or the tortoise owner.
Bram is somewhere to the left of the rabbit owner.

1
Logic Grid Medium · Solution

House Pet Neighbour
1 dog Alice
2 goldfish Dev
3 tortoise Esme
4 cat Bram
5 rabbit Clara

2

House	Pet	Neighbour
1	dog	Alice
2	goldfish	Dev
3	tortoise	Esme
4	cat	Bram
5	rabbit	Clara

How to make a logic grid puzzle

1Pick a difficulty. Choose a size. Harder grades add a category and drop the clues that give a square away.
2Generate the puzzle. Press Generate puzzle. You get a fresh scene, a cut-back clue list and a grid to work on.
3Print the two pages. Press Print / save PDF. You get two pages: the puzzle on page one and its answer table on page two.

How to solve a logic grid puzzle

Read the scene, read the clues, and work out which of each category goes with which. The grid down the page is where you keep track: tick what a clue settles, cross what it rules out, and the arrangement falls out of what is left.

The method

1Mark the clues that say no. Most clues rule something out rather than pinning it down, and those are the ones to put on the grid first. Find the block that pairs the two categories the clue names, and cross the cell where they meet. Nothing has been decided yet and that is fine: four crosses in a row of five decide the fifth for you.
2A tick clears its row and its column. The moment a cell is settled, nothing else in that row or that column can be true, because each item belongs to exactly one person. Crossing all of them out is not bookkeeping, it is where the next deduction usually comes from.
3Carry a fact sideways. The step people miss. If Alice is in house three, then everything you learn about house three you have learnt about Alice, and everything you learn about Alice you have learnt about house three. Copy the whole row from one block into the other. On a four or five category board this is most of the solve.
4Read the ordering clues from both ends. Somewhere to the left of, two places before, somewhere between. Each of those trims both ends of a line at once: if the cat owner is left of Alice, the cat owner is not in the last house and Alice is not in the first. Taken one at a time they say very little; taken together they close a board.

The one rule people get wrong: A cross means those two items belong to different people. It does not mean either of them is settled anywhere else, and it is easy to tick a neighbouring cell out of impatience. Only tick when the row or the column has nothing else left in it.
What the answer page shows: A table of who had what: one row per person, one column per category, so you can check a line at a glance rather than reading a filled-in grid.
How the grades differ: More categories and more people, and from the hard grade up, no clue that places anybody outright. The clue count falls relative to the board as the grades rise, which is most of what you feel.
Will I ever have to guess?: No. Every board here is checked twice before it prints: that the clues allow one arrangement, and that reasoning alone reaches it. A board that needs a guess is thrown away rather than printed.
Is it the same as a sudoku?: No. A sudoku gives you the rules and some of the answer; a logic grid gives you all of the rules in words and none of the answer. There is no arithmetic in it anywhere, and the work is reading rather than scanning.
Good for: Anyone who likes to argue their way to an answer in prose.

Publishing a whole book?

This tool makes one puzzle for home or the classroom. To make a logic grid book you can sell on Amazon KDP, Publisher Studio generates hundreds of graded puzzles across a difficulty curve, at any KDP trim, as a print-ready interior and answers PDF.

See the KDP logic grid maker

Questions

What is a logic grid puzzle?: It is a deduction puzzle, sometimes called a logic problem or a zebra puzzle. A short scene sets up a few categories, such as five neighbours, their houses, their pets and what they drink. A list of clues tells you how those fit together without ever telling you an answer outright. You tick and cross a grid until only one arrangement survives.
Is this logic grid generator free?: Yes. Pick a grade, generate a puzzle and print it with its answer, with no sign-up and no watermark. It is free for classroom, home and personal use.
How do I use the grid?: Each block of the staircase pairs two categories. When a clue rules something out, cross that cell. When it pins something down, tick it and cross the rest of that row and column. The step people miss is the one across blocks: if Alice is in house three, then whatever is true of house three is true of Alice, so you can copy a whole row from one block into another.
Will I ever have to guess?: No. Every puzzle here is checked twice before it prints: once to confirm the clues allow only one arrangement, and once to confirm that arrangement can be reached by reasoning alone. A logic grid you have to guess at is not a hard one, it is a broken one, so a board that fails the second check is thrown away.
Why are there so few clues?: Because the extra ones are taken out. A clue list that merely works is easy to make and it is a worse puzzle: it is usually around twenty clues, several of which follow from the others. Every clue here is offered for removal in turn, and kept only if the puzzle breaks without it, which on the wider boards takes that twenty down to about thirteen.
Which sizes fit which paper?: The free tool prints at 8.25 by 11 inches, which holds every grade. On a smaller page the grid and the clue list start to compete, so our Publisher Studio only offers the grades a trim can really carry: the hardest needs roughly 6.7 by 9.6 inches or larger. Studio exports at any KDP trim, from 5.06 by 7.81 up to 8.27 by 11.69, as a print-ready 300 DPI interior.

Short of ideas? Browse our ready-made printables for this puzzle and print one today.