Crossword Forge - 6.1.4

You gotta love the rapid release of versions.

Great program...easy to use, stable, lots of features, etc. My only request is...that the help/manual document be offered as a separate file (PDF, e.g.) for those times I’m not connected to the internet.

I just got Crossword Forge and found it absolutely wonderful. I'm new to Mac and not especially skilled technically, but this was really easy and the results are great.

Basically, you just click on "clues," type in the crossword clues you'd like to give, type in your answers, and click "make puzzle." Voila, you're done. But you can spiff it up by adding background. I was making a birthday present for a family member who loves crosswords, so I put a photo of the person in the background, and all the clues were silly or significant events in the person's life. Cool present!

But I could easily see this being used as a great teaching tool. A history teacher could add a backdrop of a Revolutionary battle, for example, with all clues connecting to historical figures, concepts or events. An art teacher could create puzzles on the Impressionists...or ziggurats (heaven help us). Endless possibilities!

Don't be afraid to use the advanced tab. I'm a beginner, but got brave and found it very useful. I had added a photo as background, and the puzzle was much larger than the photo. So I went into "advanced" and adjusted the size of the puzzle squares/blocks and how many could be in the puzzle...pressed the "make puzzle" button again, and it all fit. Play around with it a bit; it's pretty easy.

By the way, don't be discouraged if some of your clues don't fit into the puzzle. Every time you click "make puzzle," it creates a different puzzle arrangement using your same clues. At one point, I had five different crosswords all using the same 45 clues.

One other thing I loved about this software: the trialware version is almost complete -- it just doesn't let you print. So you can get the hang of it, see whether you like it, and create a full crossword before deciding whether to buy. When you want to print, it tells you that you can't unless you buy it... and leads you back to the website. After you do the purchase, the key to unlock the product arrives by return email, and you can print whatever you've been working on.

All in all, a great, easy-to-use product. And if I were a teacher, I'd leap at it --so much more fun than a pop quiz! By the way, I can't review the documentation because I just started using it...never even looked for documentation. I CAN tell you that I called the company to ask a question, and they were unbelievably nice and helpful. And they give you a few years' worth of free upgrades when you buy!

Well worth every penny - this programme is going from strength to strength. The pupils love having the puzzles tailor-made for them. They make great revision aids - and easy to correct homeworks.

$50 is a lot of money for a teacher to spend for to make crossword puzzles. I have not tried it (not even a demo verson), but the preview pictures look good. As an alternative, I had just purchased PuzzleMaker for $20 from Discovery School. It works great on my up-to-date Mac and has a Windows installer for my school computer.

Click here.