Almost all Newspaper and Journal started publishing a daily Sudoku
puzzle in their comic or strip pages. And most of us, including me has
nearly became addicted to solving these puzzles.
Sudoku
is a 9x9 grid. In the newspaper each day, they may fill in 20-30% of
the 81 numbers in the grid. Your goal is to fill in the remaining
numbers. Each row, column, and 3x3 sub-grid must contain each of the
digits from 1 through 9 without any digits repeating.
When
you consider the puzzle below, the top left square can not contain 1,
5, 6 or 8 because these numbers already appear in the first column. The
top left square can not contain 4 or 9 because these numbers already
appear in the same row. It can not contain a 4 because a 4 appears in
the upper-left 3x3 sub-grid.
Thus,
the possible numbers for the top left cell are 2, 3, or 7. Trying to
solve the puzzle from the morning paper quickly consumes all of the time
for breakfast and can make you late for work if you are not careful.
Microsoft Excel Work Book By Mike Oldroyd :
Mike
Oldroyd has created an Excel workbook to solve Sudoku. I have attached
that, and the VBA code is also available. So anyone who is interested
can poke inside to see how it works.
This
workbook is very cool. It gives you the complete solution in a few
seconds. It would probably be cooler if you want to reveal the one
square that you may stuck on. Sometimes, if you could just solve one
square, the rest of the puzzle would start to fall into place.
I've
zipped it at this link. For more about Mike, visit
http://www.mikeoldroyd.com/.
Microsoft Excel Work Book By Jobey Jones:
There
is also another workbook from Jobey Jones, England. This is a workbook
that is a Sudoku Assistant. Instead of giving you the solution, it makes
quick work of a lot of the work involved in solving Sudoku.
Enter
the puzzle in his grid, and many formulas provide statistics. The fact
is that the digits from 1 through 9 add up to 45, so first Jobey figures
out the total for each row, column, subgrid and compares this to 45. He
reports which numbers are missing in the row, the column, and each
subgrid.
My favorite part is this section where
he shows which numbers are still possible in each cell of the grid.
Clearly, the 2nd column in the 5th row must be a 9, since that is the
only value left.
If you still want to do some of the work of solving Sudoku, download this zipped
sudoku2.zip.
If
you have both programs, you can enter the puzzle in one form, then use
Copy / Paste Special - Values to copy to the other program.
Microsoft Excel Work Book By Jerry:
Jerry
from Erie, New York has created another workbook that is a Sudoku
solver. This one is cool because it lets you see how to solve Sudoku
iteratively. Enter the puzzle from the paper. Jerry's workbook shows you
which squares can be solved right now. Click Solve to put those numbers
in the grid. Then, new squares light up in yellow as being solvable.
Press
Solve to put those squares in the grid. If you are new to Sudoku, this
will help you to understand that solving Sudoku is a step by step
process.
Enter the puzzle in the upper left grid.
The upper right grid will light up in one of two shades of yellow to tell you the squares that can be solved.
Here
is how it knows the lower right square has to be a 6: All of the other
numbers from 1 through 9 are already used: 2, 3, 4, and 5 are in the
same row. 4, 7, and 9 are in the same column. 1, 2, 5, and 8 are in the
same subgroup. This means the only possibility left is a 6.
Click
the Solve!!! button to transfer the yellow squares to the upper left
grid. Once that information is known, new yellow squares show up in the
upper right. Continue the process.
Here is a
good example in the second round. There are three unfilled cells in the
right column. They all could host a 3. The one in yellow can only host a
3, meaning that the square with the possibility of a 3 or 8 must be an
8. In these cases, the 3,8 square is highlighted in lighter yellow and
when you click solve, an 8 will be sent to the grid. The lower right
grid shows you which of the light-yellow numbers will go to the grid.
Download it zipped from
JerrySuduko.zip
Microsoft Excel Work Book By David Dawson:
Update For 2010!
David Dawson of Sydney has created along his version of a MS Excel
Sudoku solver. The interface is colorful and offers not only the working
version of the puzzle, but the starting puzzle as well.
bench3
provides examples and procedures for illustration only, without
warranty either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the
implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular
purpose. Also, the workbooks and procedures on this web site are
provided "as is" and we do not guarantee that they can be used in all
situations.
