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Free Printable Halloween Puzzles

Six spooky puzzles for October — a trick-or-treat word search, a haunted-house story maze, a Halloween crossword, two hidden-picture nonograms and a witches’ cauldron cryptogram. Every puzzle prints on a single page with a fold-over answer key.

Word search · maze · crossword · picture nonograms · cryptogram — from Easy to Hard

All Halloween puzzles (6)

Easy

Trick or Treat

Word Search

Twelve Halloween words, from JACK-O’-LANTERN and SKELETON to BAT and BROOM, hidden across, down and diagonally — never backwards. The gentlest puzzle in the October line-up.

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Medium

Haunted House Candy Heist

Maze

The ghost has stolen the Halloween candy — find the one path through the haunted house, past the black cat and the glowing red eyes, to the candy room at the top of the tower.

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Medium

Boo Who?

Nonogram (Picross)

Use the row and column number clues to reveal an outline ghost — hollow eyes, an open mouth, and a wavy hem along the bottom.

Print this puzzle » Symbols & Icons »

Medium

Things That Go Bump

Crossword

Twenty spooky words, from ZOMBIE and VAMPIRE to TRICK OR TREAT — a Halloween criss-cross crossword with a full word bank.

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Medium

Something's Brewing

Cryptogram

Crack the substitution cipher to reveal the witches' spell from Shakespeare's Macbeth — a Halloween-flavoured cryptogram.

Print this puzzle » Logic & Code-Breaking »

Hard

Halloween Icon

Nonogram (Picross)

Use the row and column number clues to reveal a hidden jack-o'-lantern.

Print this puzzle » Symbols & Icons »

The pack at a glance

Puzzle	Type	Level	What’s inside
Trick or Treat	Word Search	Easy	12×12 grid · 12 words · target under 4 min
Haunted House Candy Heist	Maze	Medium	Story maze · ages 8+
Boo Who?	Nonogram	Medium	20×20 picture grid · solve on screen or print
Things That Go Bump	Crossword	Medium	20 clues · word bank · play online
Something's Brewing	Cryptogram	Medium	Substitution cipher · typical 15–30 min
Halloween Icon	Nonogram	Hard	20×20 picture grid · solve on screen or print

Where to start

Six Halloween puzzles, from easiest to hardest:

Trick or Treat (No. 123). The gentlest of the six: twelve spooky words in a friendly 12×12 word search, never backwards. Great for younger kids.
Haunted House Candy Heist (No. 121). A story maze for ages 8 and up: get the trick-or-treater past the black cat, the bat and the ghost to the candy room at the top of the tower.
Boo Who? (No. 115). A Medium 20×20 nonogram that reveals an outline ghost. Solve it on screen or print it.
Things That Go Bump (No. 119). A twenty-clue Halloween crossword, from ZOMBIE and MUMMY to TRICK OR TREAT, with a word bank. Print it or play it online.
Halloween Icon (No. 114). A Hard 20×20 nonogram with a jack-o’-lantern hidden inside.
Something’s Brewing (No. 116). The library’s first true substitution cryptogram: the alphabet is scrambled at random and the hidden text is the witches’ spell from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Typical solve: 15–30 minutes.

Ways to use this pack

A Halloween party table. Something for every age: the word search and the maze for the youngest, the crossword or a nonogram for older kids, and the cryptogram for the grown-ups.
A classroom Halloween party. Trick or Treat prints on one page and takes under five minutes, so it works as a quick warm-up; Things That Go Bump has a word bank, which keeps it fair for mixed ages.
A quiet October evening. The two nonograms reveal their pictures one square at a time — a good wind-down once the costumes are off.
A first step into codes. If Something’s Brewing looks daunting, start with the easier Science Cryptogram, where you are told the shift. Our cryptogram guide covers both kinds.

Solving and printing tips

Things That Go Bump and both nonograms work on screen as well as on paper. The nonograms fill in as you click, so you can try a guess and undo it.

For the cryptogram, start with one-letter words (almost always A or I) and the very common three-letter word THE.

Mr. Puzzle says: Saving the cryptogram for after the kids are in bed is a perfectly good strategy. Fifteen to thirty minutes of quiet goes a long way.

Looking for autumn, winter or rainy-day puzzles? They live in our Seasons & Weather pack.