I can’t say enough about how useful Jim Horne/Jeff Chen’s XWORD INFO is. In addition to having all sorts of useful tools. It’s also just really fun to explore if you like data! While you can explore a lot without an account, for me the Finder and word list download options are well worth the $50 annual “Angel” account.
| Learn to Create Crosswords |
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| Patrick Berry’s $10 Crossword Constructor’s Handbook (An oldie, but very goodie. I learned so much and it saved me way more than $10 worth of time!) |
| Crosswordr’s Crossword Construction for Beginners (2025) |
| Constructing page on Lloyd Morgan’s Generalisms site |
| NYT How to Make a Crossword series (2018) |
| Construction Software and Apps |
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| Crossword Compiler ($) for Windows is what I use. I subscribe to the “Pro Bundle” version. Alternatively, there is a one-time purchase option. It is regularly updated with new features. |
| CrossFire ($) is another widely-used paid option with Mac, Linux, and Windows versions. |
| Free crossword construction apps/software that seem to be in reasonably wide use include Crosshare, Crosserville, and Ingrid. A newer option, which includes the ability to collaborate with others is Crossworthy. |
| While you can create crosswords (and other puzzles) at Amuse Labs, what I love it for is making my puzzles available to solve online. I love its solving interface on both mobile devices and computers. |
| Other crossword-specific tools for constructors |
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| https://www.xwordinfo.com/ (see shout out above) |
| spread the word(list) is a large free (Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license) scored wordlist made available for download by Brooke Husic and Enrique Henestroza Anguiano. The 1/1/2025 update has 303,266 words with 112,036 scored 50 or higher |
| Adam Aaron’s Wordlisted is fabulous for manipulating your wordlist while developing themes |
| CRUCIVERB.COM – Crossword Constructors Community Center |
| Crosswordr is a site where you can share your puzzles (and solve puzzles shared by others) and get embed codes to share them on other sites |
| Grid Search lets you designate puzzle size and squares that you definitely to be white or definitely want to be black and generates sample grids with these constraints |
| NYT Submission Editor for converting a PUZ file to a PDF |
| Not crossword-specific, but still really helpful in construction! |
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| Merriam-Webster: America’s Most Trusted Dictionary |
| https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/ |
| https://www.rhymezone.com/ (especially, but not only, the “Phrases” option) |