If you’ve ever wanted to share a crossword online, you’ve had to log into a website, agree to some terms of service, and upload your puzzle. All of the available options send your file to a remote server before turning it into an embeddable puzzle. You could of course upload the Crossword Nexus solver to your own website if you have that capability, but most people don’t. Ideally there would be a solution where you could share a puzzle without ever uploading anything or agreeing to any TOS. But that’s impossible, right?
Right?
Check out The Crossword Sharer from Crossword Nexus. The Crossword Sharer runs entirely in your browser. When you select a .puz, .jpz, or .ipuz file, everything happens on your own device — no uploads, no tracking, no cookies, no storage. The tool simply reads your crossword locally, lets you pick your colors and layout options, and then creates a shareable link or iframe you can post anywhere.
Your puzzle never leaves your computer unless you choose to share it.
Why this matters
If you’ve ever read the Terms of Service for major puzzle hosts, you’ll notice language like this (from Amuse Labs):
“When you submit content to us, you give us a fully paid, worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully and freely sublicensable, and transferable right and license to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works based upon, publicly display, and publish your content …”
That’s a lot of legalese to say: once you upload your puzzle, it’s not really yours anymore. We’re not a huge fan of that. The Crossword Nexus Sharer doesn’t need a Terms of Service, because we don’t have a service that stores or processes your data. There’s nothing to license, nothing to sign away, and nothing for us to collect. Your puzzle stays yours — period.
One problem the Crossword Nexus Solver has had in the past is that while it’s customizable, those customizations required some tech-savviness to implement. The Sharer removes that problem by allowing you to easily choose the color scheme of your puzzle, and allowing you to convert circles to shaded squares. As ever, it supports more file formats and puzzle types than any other sharing tool. And we’re not planning on stopping here.
The web has been trending toward platforms that ask you to upload everything and trust them with your data. Let’s move away from that, shall we?
Try out The Crossword Sharer and let us know what you think. A comment here would be great, or if you have a feature request, feel free to open an issue. And heck, if you’re tech-savvy, feel free to fork the repo and make some improvements! PRs welcome!
Now get out there and share some puzzles.