Crossword Forge for Windows

Crossword puzzle and word search enthusiasts who want to try their hand at creating their own will appreciate the tools and help found in Crossword Forge. While you won't be able to print or view your puzzles without the answers displayed, you can still get a good sense of how this program works.

The interface is designed for business, with tabs for easy access to create your puzzle in steps, from the title to the background. The hardest part is coming up with the clues and answers. Crossword Forge makes the rest fairly simple, and you need only type in your clues and answers in their appropriate fields. Hit the Make Puzzle key and your puzzle is arranged for you. By default, the program will try and fit in every answer, but you can also specify how many of your answers you want Crossword Forge to shoot for. We were pretty impressed with the results and how many of our answers were arranged in official crossword format. Like a standard word processor, you'll find simple options to choose the font, its size and style, and to designate block size and puzzle width and height. Educators will like the numerous language options, including Russian, Spanish, and Arabic.

There is no time restriction given for Crossword Forge, but you can only view or print your puzzles with the answers displayed. The same goes when exporting to bitmap, text, or PDF format. The Web export option is completely disabled, but you can see a sample Web puzzle. We recommend Crossword Forge for anyone interested in making puzzles for the classroom or just for fun.

• Writing mask letters in the puzzle mask editor is now easier and more obvious. We now include a "Write" control specifically for this purpose.
• Added an "Update Word List..." in the mask editor which will synchronize your changes from the puzzle mask editor to the main word list. This allows you to build puzzle manually much easier than before. Here's the basic synchronization rules: 1. If the word is only in the mask it will add it to the word list and the puzzle grid 2. If the word is in both the word list and the mask, but not yet in the puzzle grid, it will add it to the puzzle grid 3. If the word is only in the word list, and the word doesn't have a clue specified it will be removed. (this rule doesn't apply for word search puzzles) 4. If the word is only in the word list, and the word does have a clue specified you can optionally remove it.You can manually override the synchronization actions of any of the above. You can also specify clues for any words. This is great for when adding new words via the mask editor. Words that don't fit any of the rules above are not altered.
• Pressing the new "Update Puzzle" button will also cause Crossword Forge to run a check to see if islands are necessary for the given puzzle. If so, Crossword Forge will warn you. It also provides a way for you to easily turn on "puzzle islands" from within the warning dialog.
• Added Irish Gaelic as a built-in language.
• Other minor improvements added.