Two kinds of crossword
Before you start, decide which kind of crossword you are making. The puzzles in newspapers are American-style or British-style grids: a fixed square (15 × 15 is the classic size) with black squares arranged in a symmetrical pattern, and every white square belongs to an answer. They are beautiful but very hard to construct, because every letter must work in two directions and the answers must fill the whole square.
Almost every crossword made for a classroom, a party or a newsletter is a free-form crossword instead. The answers you choose are linked together where they share a letter, like branches, and the rest of the grid is left empty. You decide the words first and the grid follows. That is the kind this guide — and our crossword maker — produces.
Step 1: choose the theme and the answers
Start with a topic: a holiday, a science unit, a spelling list, the names of your family. Write down 15 to 25 candidate words; you will probably not use all of them. A few rules of thumb:
- Length. Words of five to ten letters connect most easily. Very short words (three letters) have few chances to cross anything, and a single very long word can dominate the grid.
- Common letters. Words full of E, A, R, S, T, O and N cross each other easily. A word like JAZZ, with no common letters, may be impossible to attach.
- Count. Ten to twenty answers fill one printed page with room for clues. Fewer than eight looks sparse; more than twenty-five needs small squares and tiny clue text.
- No duplicates. Each answer should appear once. Avoid using both a word and its plural.
Step 2: build the grid
This is the part that takes patience on paper. Write the longest answer across the middle of a sheet of graph paper. Then take the next answer and look for a letter it shares with the grid. Write it crossing that letter, running in the other direction. Keep going, always crossing a letter that is already there.
The one rule that matters: two letters may only touch if they are part of the same answer. If you write a word down so that it runs alongside another word, the letters side by side create little two-letter "words" that are not in your list, and the puzzle stops making sense. In practice this means every new word needs empty squares on both sides of it, except where it crosses, and an empty square before its first letter and after its last.
When a word will not fit anywhere, set it aside and come back after you have placed others — a later word may give it a letter to cross. If it still will not fit, replace it with a word that shares more letters with the rest. A generator does exactly this, but tries dozens of arrangements in a fraction of a second and keeps the most compact one, with the most crossings.
Step 3: number the squares
Numbers are what connect the grid to the clues. Read the grid like a page of text: row by row, left to right. Every square that starts an answer — across, down or both — gets the next number. If one square starts both an across and a down answer, it gets only one number, and that number appears in both clue lists.
Numbering is easy to get wrong by hand, especially after you move a word. If you change the grid, renumber the whole thing from the top.
Step 4: write the clues
Clues make or break a crossword. For each answer write one clue that leads to exactly that word. Keep them short, match the tense and number of the answer (a plural answer needs a plural clue) and pitch the difficulty at your solvers. Our guide on how to write good crossword clues goes into detail.
List the clues in two columns, Across and Down, each in number order. Adding the letter count after each clue — "Sour yellow fruit (5)" — helps beginners and costs nothing.
Step 5: make the answer key and print
Copy the grid with every square filled in. Put the puzzle on page one and the key on page two, so you can hand out the puzzle without giving away the answers. If you are printing for a class, check the key by solving one copy yourself: it is the fastest way to catch a clue that points to the wrong word.
Doing it with a generator
With the free maker you type each answer and clue on a line, like Lemon - Sour yellow fruit, and the grid, numbers, clue lists and answer key are built instantly. You can click New layout to see another arrangement of the same words, print or save a PDF with the key on page two, download a PNG for slides or newsletters, or copy a link so others can solve it online. If a word cannot connect, the maker tells you which one, so you can swap it.
Common problems and fixes
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| A word will not connect | It shares no letters with the rest, or every shared letter is already crossed. Add a word with common letters, or try a new layout. |
| The grid is long and thin | Too many words of the same length. Mix short and long answers. |
| The puzzle is too easy | Turn off the word bank and letter counts, and write less literal clues. |
| The puzzle is too hard | Turn on the word bank, use shorter answers and give definition-style clues. |
Once you have made one, the second takes five minutes. For more ideas see crosswords in the classroom or browse the printable crosswords for inspiration.