Braille Sudoku boards

This page contains Sudoku boards in Braille format. So far, we have 250 boards in 5 difficulty levels. The difficulty levels here refer to how many cells in the boards are empty.

How to use these files

There are two formats of the boards. The boards are identical between formats, but depending on the size of your display, you will probably find one format works better.

The large version was originally designed for use on multiline displays, and it probably still works best on a device like the Monarch. However, it can be used on any Braille display, working best with displays with at least 32 cells.

The compact version is designed for displays with shorter lines, requiring at least 11 cells to display. This version has gaps between the boxes horizontally as well as vertically.

Download the right format using the download section at the bottom of this page. If you're not sure of the best format, use the table below to find out whether BRF or BRL files are recommended.

Each archive contains the same puzzles, divided into five difficulty levels. The solutions are also there to help learn the game or to cheat really fast to impress people.

Each board has nine rows and nine columns. Some cells have numbers in them already. In the large version, these are written as normal literary Braille numbers. In the compact version, these are written as letters from A to I. Some cells are blank, represented by two hyphens in the large version and one hyphen in the compact version. Your job is to fill in the blank cells correctly. If you are not familiar with the rules of the game, see below in the "how to play sudoku" section. Both versions have blank columns to show the gaps between boxes. The compact version also has horizontal blank lines to show the gaps between those boxes with a full cell at the intersection between horizontal and vertical gaps. The large version does not have these because then the whole board could not appear on the Monarch at one time. Here are some useful tips for using the Braille version of these:

• When adding your own numbers, you may want to use a different format so they're harder to confuse with the original numbers on the board. You could use lowered numbers, as used in the Nemeth Braille code (used for mathematics, primarily in the United States), letters, a different number sign, no number sign at all, or whatever you find most useful to keep these distinguished.
• If you can't see the whole board, you can put a label on the right side of some lines to make it easy to keep your place.

How to use them with the Monarch

You can open the puzzle files in the KeyBRF application. Using the default settings, the first line will be somewhat indented. To make the cells line up properly, you want to disable the "show editor indicators" option. You will also need to be in editing mode (X-chord) in order to insert your numbers.

About the project

These Sudoku boards were created following a discussion on the multiline Braille display users list. They were originally designed for use on a Monarch, but do not require one. Please note that the person who made these doesn't have a Monarch, so while we've been told that these work well, we don't have firsthand experience.

Improvements and suggestions

If you have comments or questions about these boards, you can send email to braillesudoku@seeinghands.org. If you have questions about using your Braille display with these files or other ones, we suggest that you use either the Braille display users mailing list or multiline display users mailing list, both of which contain many knowledgeable people who have experience with all sorts of displays. We are also on those lists.

We can also generate new boards or make modifications to the way we're creating them. If you have boards you want converted to Braille, want more of the type we currently have, or have a suggestion for improving the quality of the randomly-generated boards, don't hesitate to send us an email.

How to play Sudoku

A Sudoku board consists of nine rows and nine columns. Each row and column must have each of the numbers 1 through 9 in exactly one of the cells. No number can be left out and no number can appear twice. The board is also divided into 3-by-3 squares which must also have the same distribution of numbers. When you start a Sudoku game, some numbers are already in the cells. These are fixed numbers and can't be changed. Your job is to find the numbers that can fill in blank spaces in the grid without breaking any of the rules.

Download the boards

Select the file type you would like to use. If you are unsure, see the manufacturer table for help.