Your words, arranged and checked
Type answers and clues; get a printable crossword with numbering and an answer key. The finished grid is taken apart again and every letter run in it must be one of your entries — so it never contains a word nobody wrote a clue for.
Your words never leave this device
The word nobody wrote a clue for
Place two entries near each other and the letters that end up adjacent form runs of their own. A grid can look completely tidy while containing a three-letter word down column four that has no clue — and a solver, who cannot know it was an accident, reads it as an entry with a missing clue and concludes the puzzle is broken.
Two things prevent it here. Placements are refused if a letter landing on an empty cell would have a neighbour beside it across the word's direction, or if a word would butt onto the end of an existing one. And then the finished grid is taken apart: every maximal run of two or more letters, across and down, is read back off the grid as printed and must match exactly the entries that were placed — nothing extra, nothing missing, nothing spelled differently.
That second check deliberately reads the grid rather than the placement records, because it is the records that would be wrong if the placement logic had a hole in it.
Why entries sometimes will not fit, and what happens then
Every entry after the first has to cross something already in the grid. A word whose letters do not appear anywhere usable — or which appears only where a crossing would create an unintended run — cannot go in.
When that happens it is listed underneath with the reason, never quietly dropped. A generator that silently omits three of your twenty answers has produced a sheet you cannot hand out and has not told you why. Entries that are too short, longer than the grid, or duplicates of another after spaces and accents are removed are refused up front with the same treatment.
If several will not fit, the usual fix is a longer answer or two with common letters — words containing E, A, R, S and T cross far more readily than ones built from J, Q and X.
What this does not do
It does not fill a professional American-style symmetric grid. That needs a large licensed word list and a completely different search: the black-square pattern comes first and the software finds words to fit it, which is why those grids are full of ODEA and ETUI. Here the words come first and the grid is whatever they make — which is the right way round for a class list, a quiz, a wedding table or a leaving card.
So there is no symmetry option, because offering one that could not be honoured would be worse than not offering it.
Writing clues that work
Length matters more than cleverness. A clue that runs to two lines pushes the list onto a second page and makes the sheet awkward to hold. Aim for under about sixty characters, which is roughly the width of the column.
Vary the form. A page of clues that are all definitions reads as a vocabulary test; mixing in a description, a gap-fill and a straight question makes the same content feel like a puzzle. For a class, one or two easy entries near the start give a foothold — and the entries with the most crossings are the ones worth making easy, since getting them opens the most of the grid.
Printing
The answer key starts on its own page, so stopping the print job one page early gives you the puzzle alone. Grid lines are drawn rather than shaded, and the numbering sits in the corner of each cell at a size that survives a photocopier.
Related
Word searches from the same kind of list, cryptogram sheets, or the puzzle hub for the rest.
Questions people actually ask
Can the grid end up containing a word I did not write a clue for?
No, and that is the check the whole tool is built around. Placements that would weld two entries into a longer run are refused, and then the finished grid is taken apart: every run of two or more letters, across and down, is read back off the grid as printed and must be exactly one of your entries. That check reads the grid rather than the placement records, because the records are what would be wrong.
What happens to answers that do not fit?
They are listed underneath with the reason, never dropped. Every entry after the first has to cross something already placed, so a word whose letters do not appear anywhere usable cannot go in. Too-short, over-long and duplicate answers are refused up front and named the same way.
How are spaces, hyphens and accents handled?
Spaces and hyphens disappear into the grid — ICE CREAM takes eight cells — while the clue list still shows the answer as you typed it, with the letter count beside it. Accents are folded rather than refused, because somebody typing CAFÉ means four cells and being told their answer has an unsupported character helps nobody.
Why is there no symmetry option?
Because it could not be honoured. Symmetric American-style grids are built the other way round: the black-square pattern comes first and software finds words to fit it, which needs a large licensed word list — and is why those puzzles are full of odd little filler words. Here your words come first and the grid is whatever they make. Offering a symmetry setting that quietly did nothing would be worse than not offering one.
Where does the answer key go?
On its own page when printed, so stopping the job one page early gives you the puzzle alone. On screen there is a button to fill the grid in and empty it again.
Is my word list stored anywhere?
In your browser, so a reload does not cost you twenty lines of typing. It is never sent anywhere and there is no account. Clearing your browser data clears it.