App Detail » Crossword Forge 7

What's New

- Fixed a problem where Crossword Forge would sometimes unexpectedly clear the puzzle if you left the mask editor open after issuing a clear command. Broken in version 7.2.
- Now updates the puzzle mask editor when you make a puzzle or undo making a puzzle.
- Paste now works again for the Puzzle Mask Editor. Broken in version 7.2
- It's now possible to add an explicit space in the puzzle mask editor by holding the shift key and space. Keep in mind you'll need to have "Extract Spaces" turned off in your language preferences, otherwise the spaces in your answers will be removed and will fail to match your explicit spaces in the mask.
- This version includes improved puzzle sharing between the Mac and Windows editions of Crossword Forge. We fixed a bug in which puzzle masks weren't always written and loaded in a cross platform way.
- Typing a return when making a mask, no longer causes a corrupt puzzle mask to be written, but rather advances typing to the next line in the puzzle mask editor. Crossword Forge 7.2.1 will automatically correct puzzle files corrupted by this bug. You can also hold the option or shift key when importing a mask file to correct it.
- Fixed error caused by performing multiple undos and redos when making the puzzle.
- Calling redo repeatedly for a Make Puzzle command was not making the same puzzle as previously. This has been fixed. Broken in version 7.0.
- Other minor improvements added.

App Description

Crossword Forge is an easy to use newspaper and classroom style crossword and word search puzzle maker. It quickly generates puzzles from your words for the web, print, and PDF. It's now up to 25x faster!

Builds high quality crossword and word search puzzles
• Interactive web puzzles*
• Print and PDF puzzles
• Picture backdrops
• Bonus clues
• Word banks (optional scrambling & supports fill-ins)
• Puzzle titles
• Customizable across and down text
• Custom grid shapes
• Complete manual control of word placement (if desired)
• Supports puzzle grids of any size
• Unlimited clue and answer length - Print out can span multiple pages (if desired)

Streamlined puzzle editing
• Data entry keystrokes optimized for rapid workflow
• Import data from tab or comma delimited text files
• Unlimited undo and redo
• Multi-lingual spell checker

Advanced puzzle engine
• Can produce the densest possible puzzles from your words. We routinely test the engine by feeding it the words from newspaper crossword puzzles (just the words, we give it no hints on the grid) and it discovers the exact same grid layout as the original hand edited puzzles.**
• Incredibily fast puzzle engine which has been written to take full advantage of your multi-core Mac. Performance scales well even on high end Mac Pros.
• Includes a puzzle mask editor to tune the puzzle engine output
• Includes a "Word Ideas" window to help find the perfect next word to add to the puzzle.
• Support for restricted word lists in word search mode (i.e. helps eliminate accidental "naughty words" in your word search puzzles)

Made for the Mac
• Puzzle files are viewable directly from the Finder using QuickLook.
• Drag & Drop Pictures and Text.
• Uses the document window icons so that you can easily move or copy your file without returning to the Finder.
• Includes Mac OS X's built-in spell checker.
• Supports the Mac standard controls, dialogs, and behaviors, so you don't have to spend time relearning stuff that should be easy.

Foreign Language Support
• Full unicode support
• Support for characters with accents, umlauts and other diacritical marks
• Support for right to left scripts like Arabic and Hebrew
• Supports scripts and alphabets with combining ligatures
• Built-in presets for: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic, Afrikaans and more.
• Spell checker supports: English, French, Spanish, German, Danish, Dutch Portuguese, Swedish, Russian and Polish.
• "Word Ideas" dictionaries: English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. English dictionaries include US, British, Canadian, and Australian varieties.

* Web export uses Flash - and is not iPhone/iPad compatible.
** It is sometimes necessary to tweak the advanced puzzle engine settings.

Praise for Crossword Forge:

"We use crossword puzzles in the Head First series as exercises to help reinforce the concepts learned in each chapter. Without Crossword Forge we'd have to create them all by hand. There are usually 10-12 crosswords in each Head First book, so this program saves us countless hours of work. Not only that, but it's fun to use, and works really well. Thank you!"
Elisabeth Freeman -- Co-director and co-author of O'Reilly Books' Head First Series.

"Unlike less sophisticated products, Crossword Forge enabled me to create puzzles that were entertaining and instructive, all at once--and at a level that young adults did not feel patronized them."
Robin Carson -- Crossword Forge User (Instructor of Latin and English Literature)

"I love your software because i am a French teacher and I can use it in class. Bravo for one of the best softwares I have seen in a long time!"
Francine Shirvani -- Crossword Forge User

"What a great product, thank you very much."
Graham Brunskill -- Crossword Forge User

App Changes

• June 07, 2014 Initial release