Forum > Software / Technical
Crossword builder software recommendations?
crimsonsky:
--- Quote from: 4wd on August 02, 2018, 07:18:08 AM ---Yup, these features significantly cuts fill times, constructors use more of a guided approach to filling, they're picking the final entry out of a list of suggested options highlighted by these features. If it were left to the software's autofill you'd have a dull puzzle.
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Huh, I'm actually surprised and a little disappointed, though if I tried it I'm sure I'd become an instant convert. Anyway, I'm sure this community went through all these arguments over a decade ago, and I sound like a cave dweller.
Glenn9999:
--- Quote from: crimsonsky on August 02, 2018, 05:52:55 AM ---When it comes to making the actual puzzle for publication and adding all the numbers in, things stop being fun. My publisher complained when some of my puzzles had inconsistencies related to font and line thickness.
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If you just want a professional looking puzzle layout for a puzzle you've already written with no crossword puzzle creation tools or aids (word lists and the like), look into the Across Lite script. It almost always does a wonderful job in printing a grid, with a lot of good layout options too. The other two options have more features that are consistent with creating puzzles in the first place.
4wd:
--- Quote from: crimsonsky on August 02, 2018, 10:36:10 AM ---Huh, I'm actually surprised and a little disappointed, though if I tried it I'm sure I'd become an instant convert. Anyway, I'm sure this community went through all these arguments over a decade ago, and I sound like a cave dweller.
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No need to be disappointed, these tools were made for our convenience, a tool is just a tool, its our creativity that gets that final product out there. These tools just make the process a lot quicker. Where you'd struggle thinking of possible entries for a particular area, having the software do the work of listing possible entries takes that strain off you, giving you a lot more time to pick the best possible entry or experiment with multiple variations of that particular area. Plus you'll need a robust world list to really get the benefits and where the word list lacks your knowledge comes in which really streamlines the process.
Glenn9999:
--- Quote from: 4wd on August 02, 2018, 12:40:28 PM ---where the word list lacks your knowledge comes in which really streamlines the process.
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Seconded. The word list is handy because even if we know a lot of words, it's hard to THINK of them (hence my struggle with a lot of crosswords I do to do them in a decent amount of time - or at all). Having the word list, nuanced with your knowledge to take care of tricky sections or just to throw your personal preferences out there, really is handy. While I haven't been able to buy the useful version of Crossword Compiler (the base word filling functions in the demo as published frankly suck, as far as I can tell), I have been able to do a lot with my coding skills to build word lists between mining PUZ files, scraping dictionaries, and then scraping other texts for words and phrases that would work in crosswords. I haven't done as much as I could, between having good themes and trying to learn how to do a grid fill without the software, but there's always plenty to do with word lists and the like.
4wd:
--- Quote from: Glenn9999 on August 02, 2018, 01:21:42 PM ---While I haven't been able to buy the useful version of Crossword Compiler (the base word filling functions in the demo as published frankly suck, as far as I can tell)
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Demos are always limited, I remember when I tried building a puzzle with CC's demo had plenty of partials and made up words.
Recently I've been going through the same phase of building my own word list, it's quite small for now though in the future I'd like to have it ranked correctly and hopefully the words aren't too crazy :D
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