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Crossword puzzle maker: a printable word puzzle with an answer key

This crossword puzzle generator interlocks your own words and clues into a numbered criss-cross crossword with a matching answer key, in the freeform shape used for vocabulary lists. Type one entry per line, check the preview, then print it or save it as a PDF. The puzzle is built in your browser at true page size, with no watermark and no account, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

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For spreadsheet pastes, a tab or a spaced hyphen can stand in for the colon.
Details
Sheet— Grid— Entries— Pages— Seed—

How this generator works

Interlocking a list of words means searching for places where they can cross. The longest entry is placed first. Each entry after it is tried at every position where one of its letters lands on the same letter already on the grid, and each position must pass the two rules that keep a criss-cross clean: a newly filled square must not have a filled neighbor on either side of the word, and the squares just before and just after the word must be empty. Those rules stop an unintended second word from forming beside one of yours. The positions that pass are then scored. Every crossing adds a lot to the score and any growth of the bounding box subtracts from it, which pulls the layout into a compact island of words.

The page builds the whole layout fourteen times from different orderings of your list and prints the result that places the most entries in the densest, squarest shape. A word that had nowhere to go in one arrangement usually finds a home in another. Numbering happens last, read off the finished grid by the standard rule: a square gets the next number when it starts an across entry, a down entry, or both. The puzzle sheet and the answer key take their numbers from that same grid, so the two always agree. Both pages are SVG in real millimeters. Print at 100% or "Actual size" ("Fit to page" rescales the sheet), and your browser's own print dialog turns them into paper or a single two-page PDF.

This page makes freeform criss-cross puzzles only. A newspaper grid with black squares and symmetry has to be filled from a dictionary so that every across and down run spells a word, and eighteen vocabulary terms like the example list cannot do that. An entry that shares no letters with any other entry cannot be placed, and the page names it. Clues are set in two columns under the grid at the largest font size that fits, and if a long clue set still runs out of room, the page says so.

Frequently asked questions

What format does the word and clue list use?
One entry per line, as WORD: clue. You can separate the word from its clue with a colon, a tab or a spaced hyphen, so two columns pasted from a spreadsheet work as they are. A line with no separator counts as a word with no clue yet. It is still placed in the grid, and the page lists the entries that still need a clue.
Why did some of my words not get placed?
Every entry in a criss-cross has to cross a letter of an entry already on the grid, so a word that shares no letters with the others has nowhere to go. Press "New layout" first, since a different arrangement often finds room. If a word keeps failing, add an entry that bridges it to the rest, or drop it.
Can I get a symmetric newspaper-style grid with black squares?
No. A symmetric grid needs every run of squares in both directions to be a real word, which is only possible when the puzzle is built from a large dictionary. This page makes the freeform criss-cross shape that classroom and vocabulary crosswords use: an irregular island of interlocked words where every entry is one of yours.
Where is the answer key?
It is the second page of the printout: the same grid and numbering, with every square filled in. Numbers follow each entry's position on the finished grid, whatever order you typed them in, so the key's numbers match the puzzle sheet's. Untick "Include an answer key" to print class copies without it.
Is anything uploaded or stored?
No. This page reads your words and clues, lays them out as vector geometry on your device, and prints them through your browser's own dialog. Nothing is sent anywhere, there is no account or watermark, and no settings are saved: close the tab and the puzzle is gone.

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