A nonogram is a picture-logic puzzle: a grid of empty squares with number clues running along each row and column, and a hidden image waiting to be revealed. Fill the right squares using only those clues and a picture emerges, one certain deduction at a time. You may know the puzzle by another name — it's also called Picross (the Nintendo series that made it famous), Griddlers, Hanjie, or Paint by Numbers. Same puzzle, different label.
This is our home base for everything nonogram. Below you'll find a plain-English overview of how the puzzles work and the one technique worth learning first — then links to our full step-by-step tutorials and a library of free printable picross puzzles to practise on. If you're brand new, read straight down. If you already know the basics and just want to get unstuck, jump to the tutorials.
How Nonogram Solving Works (The Big Picture)
The numbers beside each row and column describe the runs of filled squares in that line, in order. A clue of 3 1 means a run of three filled squares, then at least one gap, then a single filled square. That "at least one gap" rule is the foundation everything else is built on. The whole puzzle is just squeezing each line between its own clue and the clues of every line that crosses it, until only one arrangement can possibly be true.
The best part: nonograms are pure logic. You never have to guess. Every square can be worked out with certainty, which is exactly why they're so satisfying — and why the same people who love Sudoku tend to love these too.
The One Trick to Learn First: Overlap
If you take away a single idea from this page, make it this one. When a run is large relative to the length of its line, some squares are forced to be filled no matter where the run ends up. Slide the run as far left as it goes, then as far right as it goes — any square covered both times must be filled. In a 10-square row with one clue of 8, the leftmost placement fills squares 1–8 and the rightmost fills 3–10, so squares 3 through 8 are guaranteed:
| 8 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 10 |
Start every puzzle by hunting for the lines with the biggest clues — that's where overlap hands you the most free squares to build from. The step-by-step guide below takes this idea, plus marking empties, edge logic and row-and-column cross-referencing, and walks you through a full solve.
Learn to Solve, Step by Step
Ready to go deeper? These two tutorials cover the complete solving method and what to do when a grid has you stuck.
- Nonograms (Picross): How to Solve Them Step by StepThe full walkthrough — reading clues, the overlap method, marking empties, and cross-referencing rows and columns to a finished picture.
- How to Solve Nonogram Puzzles Without Getting StuckHit a wall? The troubleshooting move is to work the most constrained clues first. Here's how to find them and break the logjam.
Where Nonograms Come From
A nice bit of puzzle history: the nonogram was invented twice, independently, in the late 1980s — by Non Ishida in Japan, where it grew into the Picross video-game series, and by James Dalgety in the UK, who called it Paint by Numbers. The name "nonogram" itself nods to Non Ishida. That double origin is why the puzzle travels under so many names today.
Practise on Paper
Reading about technique only takes you so far — nonograms click when you've got a pencil in hand and a grid in front of you. We keep a library of free printable picross puzzles you can print and solve anywhere, no screen required.
Browse Printable Puzzles »