Printable Easy Hitori Puzzles (Free PDF)

Below are six easy Hitori grids to print, each 5 x 5 and each drawn by the LogikLand Hitori generator. Their answers are gathered on a page of their own. A 5 x 5 grid is the smallest size the generator makes, so it is the right place to learn the three rules before you move on to 6 x 6. If you have never played, read Hitori rules first: it takes two minutes.

What is on this page

• Six 5 x 5 easy grids, displayed on this page and repeated in the PDF.
• A PDF of four US Letter pages: the first three hold two puzzles apiece and the fourth shows all six answers.
• A short list of where to start in each grid, so you are never stuck on the first move.

The grids are real generator output, not hand-made. Each one has exactly one solution, and each one can be solved with simple logic only: lonely numbers, sandwiches such as 5 3 5, pairs, triples, and the neighbours of shaded squares. We checked all six with a program that uses only those moves. None of them needs the "connected" rule that appears in the hard and expert levels.

The six puzzles

Shade squares so that no number repeats among the white squares of a row or a column, so that shaded squares never touch along a side, and so that the white squares stay in one connected group.

Get the four-page PDF (puzzles, then answers)

Printing the PDF

Pages are laid out for US Letter (8.5 x 11 inches). When the print dialog opens, select "Actual size" or "100 %" so the squares stay as designed. A grid measures roughly 4 inches across, which leaves room to ring a number or shade it with a pencil. Everything is black on white with thin grey lines, so any ordinary monochrome printer will do. On A4 paper "Fit to page" works too, the margins being generous.

Page 4 holds nothing but answers. Print pages 1 to 3 to play, and keep page 4 for afterwards, or pass it to whoever is marking your work.

A short LogikLand credit sits at the foot of every page, and the file is for private use. Selling puzzles in a book is another matter: consult the pricing page beforehand, since the PRO and EXPERT plans are the ones that include commercial rights.

What makes these grids easy

The easy level uses a 5 x 5 grid, so 25 squares in all. Between 6 and 10 of them, depending on the puzzle, are lonely numbers that can be circled at the very first scan. In every grid, 7 or 8 squares end up shaded, so about seven squares in ten stay white. Because there are so few squares to shade, a wrong guess shows itself quickly: a repeated number or two shaded squares that touch.

The hard and expert levels work differently. They use bigger grids, 8 x 8 and 9 x 9, and they are only kept if at least one (hard) or at least three (expert) squares need the "connected" rule. Our suggestion, not part of the puzzle: complete these six before moving to a grid of that size, so the opening moves turn into habit.

Where to start in each grid

Rows run down from the top and columns run across from the left. Each opening move below can be verified on the grid.

A routine for your first grids

Pass 1: scan for obvious squares

Go row by row, then column by column. Circle every number that appears only once in its row and in its column: it stays white. Then look for two equal numbers side by side. Exactly one of them stays white, so any other copy of that number in the same line is shaded.

Pass 2: use what the shaded squares tell you

Every shaded square has four white neighbours, so circle them. Every circled square removes the other copies of its number in its row and its column: shade them. Repeat until nothing changes. In the six grids above, this loop finishes the puzzle in a few rounds.

Pass 3: check the three rules

Read each row and column for repeated white numbers, look for shaded squares that share an edge, and trace a path through the white squares. Then compare with the solutions page. Our suggestion, not part of the puzzle: after a mistake, erase everything back to the last square you were sure about, instead of trying to repair the grid around it.

More puzzles

When these feel easy, step up to the 6 x 6 level, where more squares are shaded and more passes are needed. The method is written out on a real grid in how to solve Hitori, and the sharper tricks of the hard and expert levels are in advanced Hitori techniques.

For a complete Hitori book containing several levels, a "How to play" page and answer pages, create a free account to make a full book and use the Hitori assistant. There is no free one-puzzle Hitori tool at LogikLand; the free printable set is simply the six grids shown here.