Editing Nonogram (section)

==History==
In 1987, Non Ishida, a Japanese graphics editor, won a competition in Tokyo by designing grid pictures using skyscraper lights that were turned on or off. This led her to the idea of a puzzle based around filling in certain squares in a grid. Coincidentally, a professional Japanese puzzler named Tetsuya Nishio invented the same puzzles independently, and published them in another magazine. At this time, nonograms were also called picture-forming logic puzzles.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Salcedo-Sanz |first1=Sancho |last2=Ortiz-Garcia |first2=Emilio G. |last3=Perez-Bellido |first3=Angel M. |last4=Portilla-Figueras |first4=Antonio |last5=Yao |first5=Xin |chapter=Solving Japanese Puzzles with Heuristics |date=April 2007 |title=2007 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games |chapter-url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4219047 |publisher=[[IEEE]] |pages=224–231 |doi=10.1109/CIG.2007.368102 |isbn=978-1-4244-0709-5|s2cid=13970109 }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Dalgety |first=James |title=Origins of Cross Reference Grid & Picture Grid Puzzles |url=http://puzzlemuseum.com/griddler/gridhist.htm |access-date=2018-01-08 |website=Puzzle Museum}}</ref> 

In 1988, Non Ishida published three picture grid puzzles in Japan under the name of "Window Art Puzzles". Ishida showed her puzzles to James Dalgety, a puzzle collector in the United Kingdom, who liked the puzzles and offered to help publish her work worldwide. Dalgety coined the name "nonogram" as a mashup of "Non" from their creator's name, and "gram" from the word "diagram".<ref name=":1" />

===Print publishing===
Dalgety made a deal with the ''[[The Sunday Telegraph]]'' to publish Ishida's nonograms on a weekly basis starting in 1990.<ref name=":1" /> By 1993, the first book of nonograms was published by Non Ishida in Japan. The ''Sunday Telegraph'' published a dedicated puzzle book titled the "Book of Nonograms". Nonograms were also published in Sweden, the United States (originally by [[Games (magazine)|''Games'' magazine]]<ref>{{Cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K98BAAAACAAJ | title=Games Magazine Presents Paint by Numbers | publisher=[[Random House]] | year=1994 | isbn=0-8129-2384-7}}</ref>), South Africa and other countries. The ''Sunday Telegraph'' ran a competition in 1998 to choose a new name for their puzzles. "Griddlers" was the winning name that readers chose.<ref name=":1" /> 1993, Ishida published the "Book of Nonograms".<ref name=":0" />

===Electronic puzzles===
Paint by numbers puzzles were implemented by 1995 on hand held electronic toys such as Game Boy and on other plastic puzzle toys. [[Nintendo]] picked up on this puzzle [[fad]], claiming the trademark for the name ''[[Picross]]'' (short for "picture crossword") for their own use, and released two nonogram titles for the [[Game Boy]] and nine for the [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System|Super Famicom]] (eight of which were released in two-month intervals for the Nintendo Power Super Famicom Cartridge Writer as the ''NP'' series) in Japan. Only one of these, ''[[Mario's Picross]]'' for the Game Boy, was released outside Japan. Since then, one of the most prolific ''Picross'' game developers has been [[Jupiter Corporation]], who released ''[[Picross DS]]'' on the Nintendo DS in 2007, 9 titles in the ''[[Picross e]]'' series for the Nintendo 3DS eShop (along with 5 character-specific titles, including ones featuring [[Pokémon]], [[The Legend of Zelda|Zelda]] and [[Sanrio]] characters), and 9 titles in the ''[[Picross S]]'' series for the Nintendo Switch (along with three character-specific ones featuring [[Kemono Friends]], [[Overlord (anime)|Overlord]] and [[Doraemon]] respectively, and two featuring intellectual properties from companies such as [[Sega]] and [[Namco]] respectively).

Increased popularity in Japan launched new publishers and by now there were several monthly magazines, some of which contained up to 100 puzzles. The Japanese arcade game ''Logic Pro'' was released by Deniam Corp in 1996, with a sequel released the following year. UK games developer Jagex released a nonogram puzzle in 2011 as part of their annual Halloween event for their [[Massively multiplayer online role-playing game|role-playing game]], ''[[Runescape]]''. In 2013, Casual Labs released a mobile version of these puzzles called ''Paint it Back'' with the theme of restoring an art gallery. Released early in 2017, ''Pictopix'' has been presented as a worthy heir to ''Picross'' on PC by Rock, Paper, Shotgun.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/01/12/pictopix-review/|title=Wot I Think: Fantastic picross puzzler Pictopix|author=John Walker|work=Rock, Paper, Shotgun|date=12 January 2017 }}</ref> In particular, the game enables players to share their creations.

===Today===
Paint by numbers have been published by Sanoma Uitgevers in the Netherlands, Puzzler Media (formerly British European Associated Publishers) in the UK and Nikui Rosh Puzzles in Israel. Magazines with nonogram puzzles are published in the US, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, and many other countries.

Numerous names have been developed for these puzzles, typically from names given by various publications or from computer programs that offer these puzzles. Including Griddlers, such names include CrossPix, Descarte's Enigma, FigurePic, IllustLogic, Oekaki-Logic, Paint by Numbers, PictureLogic, and StarPic. Although the name is trademarked by Nintendo, ''Picross'' has also been used to refer to nonogram puzzles.<ref name=":1" />