Crossword puzzle maker
Your words and your clues, numbered and laid out — fitted to the words, or inside a square with black squares.
One word per row, with the clue that goes with it.
Print this one
One PDF: the sheet on the first page, the answer key on the second.
One PDF: the sheet, and the answer key on the page after it.
Across
- 3. A ring-covered case that holds loose sheets of paper
- 5. The room where students do exercise and sports
- 7. A pen with a wide tip and bright, bold ink
- 9. The person in charge of running a whole school
- 11. A meeting where the whole school gathers together
- 12. A tool with two blades used to cut paper
Down
- 1. A short test to check what you have learned
- 2. Assigned schoolwork completed outside the classroom
- 4. Where you sit to write in the classroom
- 6. The long passage that connects classrooms in a school
- 8. A small tool that removes pencil marks from paper
- 10. A seat with a back, used at a desk
How it works
You bring the words and the clues; the crossword is built around them. Every word is placed on a crossing with a word already there, so the finished puzzle is one connected piece and not a handful of separate ladders.
- 1Type a word and the clue that goes with it, then add the next one.
- 2The grid is fitted around your list, as a shape or inside a square. Words that cannot cross anything are listed separately rather than dropped in silence.
- 3Download the sheet: the numbered grid, the clues under Across and Down, and the filled grid on the page after it.
Crossword puzzle maker
Do I need a dictionary of clues?
No, and that is the point. The clues are yours, so the puzzle can be about last week's lesson, a family in-joke or the vocabulary of a single chapter. Nothing here is picked from a word list you did not write.
Why was one of my words left out?
Because it had no letter in common with any word that could be reached, so there was nowhere to cross. It is shown under the grid rather than quietly discarded: change one word and it usually fits.
Can I get the square with black squares?
Yes: choose it under Grid shape. The same words go inside a square and every cell nobody uses is printed black. A newspaper crossword has fewer black squares because its gaps are filled with words from a dictionary — here every answer is one of yours, so the square comes out blacker. The ready-made crosswords in our gallery are the other kind.