Help

The purpose of this page is to provide a step-by-step guide to creating and submitting a solution to a Euler's day off puzzle. For answers to more general questions, please see the Frequently Asked Questions page.

Table of Contents

• Moving around the website
• How to see today's puzzle
• The objective of Euler's day off
• Example puzzle and solution
• The solution entry page
• Entering your solution
• Checking your solution
• Submitting your solution
• Changing the unused letter order
• Changing the viewing mode
• Practice games

Moving around the website

The index should always be visible on the left hand side of every website page. You can use the index to move to another part of the website by simply clicking on the relevant entry.

You will also find one or more buttons on each page. If you are viewing an information page such as this one, the button at the bottom of the page will return you to the home page. The purpose of the buttons and drop-down menus on the solution entry page is described below.

How to see today's puzzle

Click on Today's Puzzle in the index to see the current puzzle. Each puzzle is displayed for 24 hours starting at 9pm UK time. You must complete the submission process before this time; otherwise your solution for that puzzle will be rejected.

The objective of Euler's day off

The objective of Euler's day off is to rearrange 25 pre-selected letters in a five-by-five square to form as many vertical and horizontal words as possible.

The score for any given solution is equal to the number of letters in the vertical words plus the number of letters in the horizontal words. Only one word may be claimed per line. The maximum score is 50, which can be obtained by rearranging the letters to form five five-letter vertical words and five five-letter horizontal words.

The full rules can be seen by clicking on Rules in the index.

Example puzzle and solution

An example puzzle and valid solution are shown below:

The solution shown contains three horizontal words: KNEE, START and BOY, and two vertical words: NETS and EARLY. The letters C, C, G, H, I, J, O, P and Z remain unused. This solution would score 21 (12 for the horizontal words and 9 for the vertical words).

Note that for clarity we have not shown any of the unused letters in the solution. This is the format used by the website to display solutions.

The solution entry page

The solution entry page allows you to enter, check and submit solutions to the current puzzle. The solution entry page is reached via the Today's Puzzle link in the index.

If you have already constructed a solution offline, for example using paper and pencil, you can use this page to check if your solution is valid and then to submit it. You can also use the page to build up a solution interactively.

The solution entry page consists of two squares and a word entry form. The square on the right shows the current solution and its score; the square on the left shows any unused letters.

Entering your solution

To enter a solution, type each of your horizontal and vertical words in the corresponding Across and Down fields in the word entry form. If you do not have a valid word on a particular row or column, simply leave the corresponding field in the form blank.

For example, to enter the solution shown above you would fill in the form as shown below:

Accoss 1	Down 1
Accoss 2	Down 2
Accoss 3	Down 3
Accoss 4	Down 4
Accoss 5	Down 5

You can clear the form at any time by pressing the Reset Button. Word entries that contain non-alphabet characters will be cleared automatically and ignored.

Checking your solution

Once you have entered your initial solution, press the Update button. If the letters in the puzzle can be arranged to form the words that you have entered, you will be shown a solution in the right hand square along with its score. Don't worry if the letter arrangement shown is not exactly what you expected - the score will not be affected. If you wish to control the exact arrangement of the letters in the solution square you can use the manual viewing mode.

If your solution contains words that are not in the Euler's day off dictionary, you will be notified and the words will be automatically removed from your solution. Please see the Rules for more information about the dictionary.

You can continue improving your solution by adding, deleting and editing your words. Press the Update button each time you wish to check if the current set of words creates a valid solution.

If you have made a mistake in your solution, for example using a letter too many times, you will see an error message. Press the Continue button to return to your solution.

Submitting your solution

Once you have produced a valid solution that you are happy with, press the Submit button. You will then be invited to enter you name and location. Please note that the solution submitted will be the one displayed on the solution entry page; so if you have been editing your solution, please be sure to press the Update button before pressing Submit.

In order for your solution to be accepted you must enter a name, but you may leave the location field blank. This information will only be used to identify the authors of solutions selected for posting on the results page. Remember - Euler's day off is only for fun, so please feel free to use a pseudonym. We do not need your e-mail address.

Changing the unused letter order

The Order menu below the unused letter square controls how the unused letters are displayed. There are three options: the Puzzle option displays the letters in the original puzzle order; the Random option changes the order of the letters each time the Update button is pressed; the Alphabetical option displays the letters in alphabetical order.

Changing the viewing mode

By default, the Solution entry page arranges the words in the solution square automatically. Since the score is determined by the number of letters in your words, it is not affected by the arrangement of the words. However, the arrangement of the words may affect the number of unused letters that are displayed. Some people therefore prefer to manually control how the words are arranged in the solution square. This is done by selecting the Manual option from the View menu below the solution square.

Once in the manual viewing mode, you can control the offset of each word by inserting # characters at the front of the word in entry form. Each # character increases the offset of the word by one space.

For example, to create the example solution shown above, the word entry form would look like this:

Accoss 1	Down 1
Accoss 2	Down 2
Accoss 3	Down 3
Accoss 4	Down 4
Accoss 5	Down 5

If the word alignment that you suggest does not form a valid solution, you will see an error message when you press the Update button.

Note: the first time you press the Update button after changing from automatic to manual mode, the website will insert # characters into the word entries corresponding to the automatic word arrangement (assuming you have entered a valid set of words). After this, the word arrangement is controlled by you.

Practice Games

In addition to the daily puzzle, you can also play practice games. The practice page can be accessed by clicking on Practice Game in the index. The practice page is almost identical to the normal solution page except that the Submit Button is replaced by the New Letters button, which generates a new practice puzzle each time it is pressed.