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su¦do¦ku in Excel

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A su¦do¦ku puzzle is a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 sub grids (called "regions"), where at the beginning some cells already contain numbers, known as "givens". The goal is to fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1 through 9 exactly once. Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of three "directions".  Full instructions for solving the grids are in the model.

Unsolved Sudoku grid with built in example and empty cells

You can enter your own puzzles or load puzzles on to the grid.  Try to solve the missing cells and press 'Check Solutions' when you have finished.  The model will stop you entering incorrect values. Alternatively press 'Check Puzzle' to load the check screen where all the possibilities are marked for you.

The possibilities for each cell are marked and you can now try to solve those cells with the least possible entries.  In the example below a number of cells have only one possibility on this easy puzzle.

sudoku2

You can press 'Auto Solve Puzzle' at any time and the model will loop and try to enter the correct digit for each cell.  The image below shows a completed solution.

sudoku3

Further references

Sudoku

The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid (also called "boxes", "blocks", "regions", or "sub-squares") contains all of the digits from 1 to 9. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid, which typically has a unique solution