Am I allowed to sell colouring sheets made here?

Yes. The pictures are drawn from geometry rather than taken from a colouring-book library, and none of them is AI-generated, so there is no licence to buy and no attribution to give. What you print is yours, for a classroom or for a product. And there is no small print about it. A colouring sheet made from an uploaded photograph or a downloaded outline can only ever pass the ownership question back to you; one built out of arcs and straight lines has no ownership question in it.

Why is the sheet not printed in colour?

Because the colouring is the activity. The sheet is outlines and numbers; the key names the colours; the child brings them. The answer page shows the areas in shades of grey so you can check it on the same printer.

How few colours can I use?

Three, which is plenty for the simpler pictures and much less daunting for a small child. Ten is the most, and suits the busier pictures at the higher levels.

Some pictures are not offered. Why?

A picture drawn as one continuous line — a snail's shell, say — has no areas at all, so there is nothing to colour in. It is refused rather than printed empty.

Colour by Number Generator

Three things go wrong with a colour-by-number and all three can be caught before it is printed: an area with no number in it, a number sitting where it looks as though it belongs to the area next door, and a key that has drifted from the picture. All three are checked here. The space around the drawing is treated as an area too, since that is the one most often left white by accident. The pictures are drawn from geometry — circles, arcs and straight sides — rather than lifted from a colouring-book library or made by an AI model, so a sheet is yours to print at home, run off for a class, or sell, with nothing to license.

Picture

Difficulty

The ages are a rough guide to who a level suits. What the setting actually changes is how much of the shape is drawn — a harder sheet has more curves and corners to follow, not a smaller picture or a fainter line.

How many colours

Between 3 and 10. Areas that touch never share one.

Seed (optional)

A word gives back exactly the same sheet.

Paper size

Print size

Margin

Millimetres of blank edge, 5 to 40.

Turn the paper sideways

How to print this, or save it as a PDF

There is no PDF to download, and there does not need to be. Open the print command in your browser and choose “Save as PDF” as the destination. The page addresses and dates a browser normally prints across the top and bottom are already kept off.
Set the scale to 100%, not “fit to page”. This sheet is already the exact size of the paper you chose, so anything that resizes it makes every measurement on it wrong.
Leave the paper size in the dialog set to the same one you chose here.

Your colour-by-number sheet will appear here.

What this generator does

Divides a line drawing into areas, gives each one a number that no touching area shares, and prints a key that lists exactly the colours the picture uses and no others.

How to use this tool

Choose a picture and a difficulty.
Choose how many colours, from three up to ten.
Make the sheet. Every area gets a number and the key appears under the picture.
Print it and hand it over with the pencils.
Show the answer to see the areas shaded, so it can be checked on the same printer.

Understanding the controls

Picture: Which drawing is divided up. A picture drawn as one continuous line has no areas and is refused rather than printed empty.
Difficulty: How much detail the picture has, which is what decides how many areas there are to colour.
How many colours: Three up to ten. Three suits a small child; ten suits a busy picture at a high level. Areas that touch never share a number.
Seed: A word gives back the same picture with the same numbering, for a second copy or a second child.

Common use cases

Number recognition for a child who is not ready to write
A colouring sheet with something to work out in it
Quiet time that produces something to put on the wall
Colour naming practice alongside the numbers
A travel activity that needs a pencil case and nothing else

Randomness and fairness

Which picture appears and which number lands on which area both come from your browser’s secure generator unless you type a seed word. The rule that two touching areas never carry the same number is not left to that draw: it is applied while the numbers are handed out and then re-checked against the finished sheet. The same word rebuilds the same picture with the same key, so a second copy matches the one already half-coloured. A seed is for reproducing a sheet, not for keeping one to yourself: the draw behind it is deterministic, not cryptographic.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Limitations and good to know

The pictures are made of a modest number of areas, because every area has to be big enough to hold its number and be coloured in. They are shapes to colour rather than detailed scenes.
The pictures are line drawings made of areas. Photographs and shaded artwork cannot be turned into one of these here.
Very narrow areas get their number printed tight against the line, because there is nowhere else for it to go.

Frequently asked questions

Am I allowed to sell colouring sheets made here?: Yes. The pictures are drawn from geometry rather than taken from a colouring-book library, and none of them is AI-generated, so there is no licence to buy and no attribution to give. What you print is yours, for a classroom or for a product. And there is no small print about it. A colouring sheet made from an uploaded photograph or a downloaded outline can only ever pass the ownership question back to you; one built out of arcs and straight lines has no ownership question in it.
Why is the sheet not printed in colour?: Because the colouring is the activity. The sheet is outlines and numbers; the key names the colours; the child brings them. The answer page shows the areas in shades of grey so you can check it on the same printer.
How few colours can I use?: Three, which is plenty for the simpler pictures and much less daunting for a small child. Ten is the most, and suits the busier pictures at the higher levels.
Some pictures are not offered. Why?: A picture drawn as one continuous line — a snail's shell, say — has no areas at all, so there is nothing to colour in. It is refused rather than printed empty.