Free printable tic-tac-toe sheets

One board or four rounds?

Page 1 gives you a single 4⅔-inch board. Use it when two players want room for larger marks or you’re explaining the game together. The two filled grids underneath are examples, so play on the large blank grid above them.

Page 2 has four 2½-inch boards, numbered in reading order. Start at round 1 and move to the next board when a game ends. Its squares are a little over ¾ inch wide at full size. Mark a winning line on the board if you want to remember the result.

How to play

Two people share one board. One is X and the other is O; X goes first. Take turns putting your mark in one empty square. A square can hold only one mark, and marks stay where you put them.

The first player to make three of their marks in a straight line wins. There are eight possible winning lines: three rows, three columns and the two corner-to-corner diagonals. The line must run straight through all three squares; an L-shaped group doesn’t count.

Check for a line after each turn and stop as soon as someone wins, even if squares remain empty. If all nine squares fill without a winning line, that round is a draw. You can start again on a fresh board. Swap X and O between rounds so the other person goes first.

Look at the other player’s next move

Before you place a mark, look for a line of two. You may be able to finish your own line, or need to fill a square where the other player could win on their next turn.

In this example it’s X’s turn. O already has two marks across the middle row. Which empty square would stop that row becoming three Os?

This is a practice example, not a puzzle printed on the blank playing boards.

Print the page you want to play

Choose US Letter for 8.5 × 11-inch paper, or A4 for 210 × 297-millimeter paper. Both files have the same content, laid out for their own paper size. Print in portrait at Actual size or 100%; check the preview for clipped edges before printing.

Enter page 1 for the single board or page 2 for four rounds. Ordinary copy paper and a pencil are enough. The sheets use a white background and dark lines, so color printing isn’t needed. Use the PDF for printing; the preview images are there to help you choose a sheet.

Print another copy when the grids are full. Downloading again gives you the same blank sheets. If you prefer to draw a grid yourself, two parallel lines crossed by two more lines make the same nine spaces.

Another game for two

For a different pencil game, try dots and boxes, where closing a box gives you another turn, or print Hangman boards for a word-guessing game. Find more in the printable library.