Nine Men’s Morris Diagram Maker

What this tool does

Nine Men’s Morris is old enough to have been scratched into the roof tiles of Egyptian temples, and popular enough that half the world knows it under a different name — mills, merels, nine man morris. What it has never had is a decent way to draw a position and show someone else. This is that: a board you click, and an image you can put in a blog post, a forum reply, a worksheet or a club handout.

Nothing is stored on a server. The whole position lives in the link, which means a URL you copy today will still open the same board later, and sharing it costs nothing.

Mills mark themselves

Three pieces of one colour in a row along a marked line is a mill, and the tool finds every one of them as you place pieces — a gold bar runs through each completed mill. It is the fastest way to check whether a position says what you meant it to say, because a mill you did not intend is exactly the kind of thing that is easy to miss and embarrassing to publish.

There are sixteen mills on the board: eight running horizontally and eight vertically. Corners of a square never form one, and neither does a diagonal — a fact that surprises a lot of people who have played the game for years. Switch Mark mills off if you want the bare position.

How to use it

1. Choose White or Black from the palette.
2. Click the points to place pieces. Clicking a piece of the same colour removes it.
3. Set which side is to move; the label appears under the board.
4. Add a caption if the diagram is a question rather than a statement.
5. Export as PNG, WebP or SVG, print it, or copy the link to the position.

Point names

The 24 points are named the way the literature names them, on a grid of files a to g and ranks 1 to 7 — so the four outer corners are a7, g7, a1 and g1, and the centre of the board is empty because no lines cross there. Turn on Coordinates to see the letters and numbers along the edges, which helps when you are writing a position up in text.

The position field uses those names directly:

W:Wa7,d7,g7:Bb6,d6,f6

The leading letter is the side to move, then each side’s points. Paste a position in to load it.

Printing and worksheets

Print puts a light board on the page — white background, dark lettering — whichever way the screen is set, and drops the navigation, the buttons and this text. You get the diagram and nothing else. Light board switches the editor itself, and that setting carries into every export and every link you share.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an account? No. There is no sign-up and nothing is saved.

Can I use the images commercially? Yes — the diagrams you create are yours to use.

Does it check whether a position is legal? Only loosely. You will get a warning for more than nine pieces a side, for a side reduced below three, and for a side that has no legal move — but deliberately impossible teaching positions are allowed.

Does it know whose mill was closed first? No. The tool draws positions, not games. It marks every mill that exists on the board, regardless of how it got there.

Want to play instead of diagram? Play Nine Men’s Morris against the computer, or read the full rules and strategy guide. There is a checkers diagram maker too.