Crossword Generator

Q: Why does the grid look nothing like a newspaper crossword?

This builds a criss-cross puzzle from the words you supply and nothing else. A newspaper grid is symmetrical and every white square belongs to both an across and a down entry, which only works because the setter can pull any word from a large dictionary to patch the gaps. With a fixed vocabulary list the grid has to be looser, so answers interlock where they can and the rest of the rectangle stays empty.

Q: Why was one of my words left out?

Either it shares no letter with any answer already on the grid, or every crossing it could have made collided with a word already placed. Both reasons are printed next to the word. Adding one short, vowel-rich answer often rescues several stranded words at once, because it gives them somewhere to attach.

Q: What does the crossed-letters column actually tell me?

It counts how many letters of that answer are shared with a perpendicular answer. Those are the only letters a solver can obtain without knowing the word itself. An answer showing zero is solvable only from its clue, so the clue has to carry the whole load.

Q: Can I get the same layout back tomorrow?

No. The layout search is randomised and nothing is saved, so each press produces a fresh arrangement. Print the puzzle or save it as a PDF while it is on screen. The clue text you typed stays in the box until you close the tab, but it is never stored or uploaded.

Paste your answers and clues, one per line. You get a numbered grid, Across and Down lists, an answer key on its own page — and a report saying how much letter-help each answer really gets.

One line per entry — answer: clue

Puzzle title Empty squares Layout aims for

Answer key page Word bank on the puzzle sheet

Interlock report

How many letters of each answer a solver can pick up from the answers crossing it. Zero means the clue has to do all the work. This section is not printed.

The report under the puzzle is the point

A crossword is easier than a quiz for one reason: the letters help. Get one answer and you have handed yourself letters in three or four others. That only holds if the answers cross. Feed a vocabulary list into most free makers and you get back a picture of a grid with no indication of how well it hangs together — a word wedged into a corner sharing a single letter looks exactly like one woven through four neighbours.

So this page prints the arithmetic. Each answer is listed with the number of its letters that a perpendicular answer crosses. Zero means the solver gets nothing from the rest of the grid and must know that word from the clue alone.

Underneath is the same figure for the puzzle as a whole: the share of squares belonging to both an Across and a Down entry. An American-style daily grid is 100%, every letter checked. British cryptics leave alternate letters unchecked, so they run near half. A puzzle from twelve topic words lands between a fifth and a half, and which end you are at tells you whether you have set a crossword or a list of definitions in a box.

The report also names anything that did not make it in, with the reason, rather than quietly shortening your list — and flags any clue that contains its own answer, which is the mistake that survives proofreading most often.

How the grid is built, precisely

The longest answer goes down first, horizontally, near the middle. Every remaining answer is then tested against every letter already on the grid: for each shared letter the candidate is laid perpendicular through that square and checked.

A placement is legal only if the squares immediately before and after it are empty, each non-crossing square has empty neighbours on both sides, and each crossing square already belongs to a word running the other way. Together those rules stop two answers running side by side, and guarantee every unbroken run of letters in the finished grid is exactly one of your answers — which is what makes the numbering trustworthy.

Among the legal placements, one is chosen by score: crossings count in its favour, any growth of the bounding rectangle counts against it, and a small random term breaks ties. The Layout aims for menu changes those weights, which is why asking for the most crossings usually produces a wider grid. Words that fit nowhere are held back and retried after the others land, since a later answer often opens the door for them.

This is a greedy search with random restarts, not a backtracking solver. Once an answer is placed within one attempt it is never moved to make room for another. Instead the layout is rebuilt from scratch many times — different tie-breaks, different order — for about a third of a second, and the best result kept. Best means most answers placed, then the squarest rectangle, then the most crossings. So a better arrangement may exist and not be found; pressing again searches afresh.

Getting clues right for the class in front of you

A definition clue names the category and one distinguishing feature — green pigment that captures sunlight beats found in leaves, which fits a dozen answers. Keep clues shorter than the answer is long wherever you can; long clues crowd the sheet and tend to smuggle in the answer's own root word. Where two answers on your list overlap in meaning, the letter count does the separating for you, so write the harder clue for the longer word.

Multi-word answers are worth flagging in the clue itself, because the grid gives no hint that a space belongs there. Spaces, hyphens and apostrophes are stripped before placement, so carbon dioxide sits in the grid as CARBONDIOXIDE, and accents are folded to plain letters — café becomes CAFE, which matters if you are setting this for a language class. The clue lists keep whatever you typed.

Questions that come up while setting one

Why does the grid look nothing like a newspaper crossword?

Because a newspaper setter chooses the words. A published grid is rotationally symmetrical, and an American-style one is fully checked — every white square sits in both an Across and a Down entry. British cryptic grids are symmetrical too but deliberately only about half-checked, with unchecked letters between the crossings. Either shape needs whatever word the pattern demands, pulled from a large dictionary. Twelve topic words cannot do that. What you get is a criss-cross: the same numbering and clue conventions, a looser shape, and empty space you can leave open or fill with black squares.

Why was one of my words left out?

One of two reasons, and the report says which. Either the word shares no letter with anything already placed, or it shares letters but each possible crossing ran into a word already there. The fix is nearly always the same: add a short, vowel-heavy answer. One extra five-letter word can rescue three stranded ones by giving them somewhere to hang.

What does the crossed-letters column actually tell me?

How many letters of that answer a solver can obtain from elsewhere in the grid. It counts squares shared with a perpendicular answer. Zero means the clue is doing all the work, which is fine for a word the class has just been taught and brutal for one they have not.

Can I get the same layout back tomorrow?

No. The search is randomised and nothing is stored, so every press gives a fresh arrangement. Print it or save it as a PDF while it is on screen. Your clue text stays in the box until the tab closes, and it is never uploaded — the whole generator runs inside this page on your own machine, so it also keeps working if the connection drops.

What it will not do

It will not invent words. With no dictionary behind it, it cannot fill gaps with connecting words, produce a fully checked symmetrical grid, or suggest clues. Diagonals are unused — real crosswords do not have them.

Answers are capped at thirty per puzzle and twenty-two letters each, past which a grid stops fitting one readable side of paper. Only the Latin alphabet is handled; anything else is listed as skipped rather than mangled. There is no hand editing either, so if a layout is nearly right, press again.