Medium sudoku printable
30 classic 9x9 boards in the useful middle: fewer clues than the easy page, more breathing room than the hard set, and exactly one checked solution each.
30 printable sheets ·
Checked and published by 
Nora Quill
Thirty three clues on every board
Each of the 30 boards here is a classic 9 by 9 that starts with exactly 33 numbers printed, which leaves 48 squares to fill. Why 33? The easy collection runs from 50 clues down to 38 and the hard one works around 26, so 33 fills the gap. A clue only comes off if the grid that remains still has one solution. No board on this page can be finished two different ways.
Who the medium boards are for
These suit a solver who now finishes the 38-clue easy board by scanning and wants a small step up without a big jump. Regular players like them too, for a puzzle that takes some thought but fits in a coffee break. A teacher running a puzzle club can hand out any mix of sheets and know the group is working at one level, because the clue count is the same on all of them.
What makes medium sudoku harder than easy sudoku?
Fewer starting numbers. An easy board here gives 38 to 50 clues and finishes by scanning alone. A medium board gives 33, so 48 squares are open and fewer of them can be written in at first glance. Once scanning dries up, pencil small candidate notes in the corner of each square. Don't guess.
Telling two 33-clue boards apart
Since the clue count never changes, each card gives two more figures from its own grid. The first is how many blank squares can take only one digit. That's your way in, and on this page it runs from none to seven. A board with six or seven openings starts gently, while a board with none asks you to find the first move through candidates. The second is how thin the barest row or box is. Some boards leave a box with a single clue, and that corner is a good place to leave until last.
All the cards are the same tier, so you're mostly picking what kind of start you want. Each one has its own puzzle number too, which helps you find a favourite board again.
Printing and marking a medium sheet
One board fills one A4 page. Print at 100 percent, because fit to page shrinks the grid. A sharp pencil keeps candidate notes readable inside the squares. The finished grid is the final page of each PDF; leave it out of the print run when the sheets go to a class, and print it separately for marking.
If 33 clues start to feel generous, the hard sudoku collection drops to around 26. If a board stalls badly, spend a few days on the 38-clue rung of easy sudoku before coming back. Beyond both sits the extreme sudoku set, which digs toward 22.
How to use these sheets
- Pick a sheet and press Print. The file is a PDF sized for A4 and Letter paper.
- Print it in black and white at normal quality. None of these sheets need colour ink except the colour by number pages.
- Keep the answer page for yourself, or print it too if you want to check the work later.