Crosswords and Crossword Tools
Want to make sure your puzzle is acceptable before submitting it to a publisher? Check out our brand-new submission checker, which allows you to choose a file and see if it checks all the boxes a publisher might require. This includes the clue character count (mandated by Universal and USA Today) and the de-duper functionality…
The Crossword Nexus Solver has supported acrostic puzzles for a while now, but acrostic puzzles remain relatively uncommon in the indie puzzle community. This is a shame, because acrostic puzzles are very fun, and I for one want to see more of them. So what’s holding constructors back? Constructors may not know how to create…
A few days ago, some of us had a great time doing some old New York Sun crosswords on stream, but instead of doing them the old-fashioned way, we first converted them to diagramless puzzles. This added an extra challenge, and discovering the shape of the grid was a surprise each time. It was…
At Crossword Nexus, we’re all about collaboration. It’s why we’ve opened up the Collaborative Word List for anyone to modify and use, and why we’re releasing more and more of our codebase on GitHub. With that in mind, we’re beyond pleased to announce a collaboration with the good folks at Beyond Wordplay: a Google sheet…
For years now we’ve been hosting the collaborative word list at my personal web site, and it’s been fine, but there are a few disadvantages. First, the list is completely reliant on my website, and if it goes down or changes something the list is down. Second, the updater program is a packaged perl script…
PuzzleMe is the standard for embedding crosswords these days, and why not? It’s got a slick interface, plenty of customization options, and analytics. That said, there are some things it can’t handle. If you want to embed a Marching Bands puzzle, or a Spiral, or any number of other variety puzzles, the PuzzleMe solver won’t…
Over on CrossCord, user NoahF had a fantastic idea for crossword construction: what if there were a Tinder-like interface for editing entries in your wordlist? An interface shows you a random word for your list and you edit its score by swiping, tapping, etc. User JayLow came up with the “Griddr” name for such a…
I’m on record as not being a huge fan of the Across Lite binary format, otherwise known by its three-letter file extension .puz. Its limitations are one of the main reasons crosswords were stuck in their conventions for years. It’s limiting and it’s annoying, so why is it still so popular? Well, despite the file…
I like easy crosswords, personally. Part of that is because they’re simply the ones I can do, but I just don’t get the rush from banging my head against a really hard crossword for too long. Still, even I think some crosswords are too easy, and could use from some toughening up. Plus, some easy…