Crossword Puzzle Maker

A crossword maker for your own words and clues

This generator turns a list of words and clues into a crossword: a grid in which every word crosses at least one other, numbered squares, and the clues sorted into Across and Down. You type the entries, one per line, as the word, a colon and the clue. The puzzle appears right away. Show answers writes the letters into the grid, Print sends the puzzle and the answer key to your printer, Download PDF saves both as one file, and Download PNG saves the grid as a sharp image for a worksheet or a slide.

It makes freeform crosswords: the grid is only as large as the words need, with empty squares wherever no word runs, rather than a filled square of a fixed size.

How the words are placed

Each entry is cleaned first. Spaces, hyphens and apostrophes are left out of the grid, so ICE CREAM is entered as ICECREAM in the squares and stays ICE CREAM in the answer key. Accented letters lose their accent, ß becomes SS, and the tool tells you which entries changed. Entries with digits or letters outside A to Z are left out and listed, as are duplicates and words shorter than two letters.

The longest word goes on the grid first, across or down. Every further word is tried at every square where one of its letters matches a letter already on the grid, in both directions. A spot counts when the word stays inside the grid, every letter lands on an empty square or on the same letter, the squares before and after the word are empty, and no new letter touches another word sideways, because that would form a second word that is not in your list. Among all spots, the one with the most crossings wins, and when two spots cross equally often, the one that keeps the grid smaller. After all words have had a turn, the ones left over are tried once more, because more letters are on the grid by then.

The whole procedure runs twelve times with different random choices, which is what the seed controls. The layout that places the most words wins, and among those the densest one, measured as letters per square of the grid. Shuffle layout picks a new seed and shows the next best grid. Words that found no spot in the winning layout are listed under the puzzle; a word that shares no letter with any other word can never be placed.

Numbers, clues and the answer key

Once the grid is set, the squares are read row by row from the top left. Every square where an across or a down word starts gets the next number, so the numbers run in reading order and a square that starts both an across and a down word carries one number for both, the way printed crosswords do it. The clue lists sort the words by that number. In the answer key, each word is listed with its number and direction next to the grid with all letters shown.

An entry without a clue is kept, and its clue becomes the number of letters, for example 6 letters. Clues are cut at 160 characters, which still leaves room for a full sentence.

Writing clues that work

These are our own suggestions from making puzzles with this tool, not rules.

• Keep clues short. One line per clue prints best, and a crossword with 30 long clues needs a second page.
• Match the form of the answer: a plural clue for a plural answer, a verb for a verb, so the solver knows what to expect.
• Do not use the answer or a part of it in the clue.
• For a class, mix easy and hard clues, so weaker solvers get the crossings they need for the hard ones.
• Pick words that share common letters. A list full of E, A, R, S and T letters crosses easily; words like JAZZ or QUIZ are hard to place.

Printing, the PDF and the PNG

Download PDF makes one file: the puzzle with the grid and the clues in two columns on the first page, more clue pages if they do not fit, and the answer key on the last page, on US Letter or A4. The grid is drawn as lines and text, so it stays sharp at any zoom. Print sends the same pages to your printer from the browser; choose the paper size in the print dialog and turn on background graphics if the black squares come out white.

Black squares use a lot of ink on a big grid. Switch Empty squares to White and the grid prints with white space around the words, with only the letter squares outlined. The PNG saves the grid alone, 1,600 pixels wide, with the letters when Show answers is on and without them when it is off.

Limits

Up to 40 words of 2 to 20 letters, which gives grids of roughly 30 by 20 squares at most. On a phone a wide grid scrolls sideways inside its box, and the squares become small; print the puzzle or open the PDF for solving on paper. The placement favors dense grids, not symmetric ones, so the shape differs from a newspaper crossword.

How to make a crossword

1. 1Type a title and your entries, one per line, as WORD: clue.
2. 2Check the notes for entries that changed or were not placed. Press Shuffle layout for another grid.
3. 3Pick the paper size and whether empty squares print black or white.
4. 4Print the puzzle, download the PDF with the answer key, or save the grid as a PNG. Copy link saves the settings and the seed, not your words.

For a letter puzzle without clues, the word search generator hides the same word list in a grid of letters. Stuck on a crossword someone else made? The crossword solver fills in the missing letters.

Related guides

• How Crossword Clues Work: Abbreviations, Tense and Tricks
• Letter Frequency in English and the Best Starting Words

Built by Tobias. Updated November 3, 2026.

Frequently asked questions