A few years ago, I started building a crossword puzzle generator. I wanted something that felt easy to use and could generate a puzzle with your own theme words in just a few seconds.
But in the process I tried a lot of different tools for both research, and to see if there was anything else out there that already matched what I was trying to make. I’ve shared the tools I tried below! (And I also include the one I built at the end :)
Crossword Creator
This is a very clean and minimal crossword tool for designing your own puzzles. He built this so that your puzzle is ready to export as a PDF files formatted according to the New York Times submission guidelines. So if you’re trying to get your puzzle into the NYTimes, it seems like a great place to do so.
Crossfire Crossword Creator
I haven’t tested this tool, but I’m sure this tool is great. It has both Windows, Mac and Linux versions, and it is just $50 with a one-time payment. I wasn’t interested in going this route because I wanted to build something that was more web-accessible so that you could build and publish all in one place.
Ingrid
Ingrid is also a downloadable app, and its open source and free to download for Mac, PC, and Linux. I played with this one a little bit, and it has a very fast auto-fill function.
Comparison of 94757+ crossword grids
This is an incredible resource of clues, and has this really nice visualization he built.
Crossword Generator
And finally, this is the Crossword Generator I made! I built this because I found the other options to be lacking for a casual builder wanting to make a quick puzzle. And thus: this is the fastest way to make a crossword puzzle in the Guardian / NYT / Newspaper style. You can set your theme words, generate different grid patterns, and autofill your puzzle with automatic dictionary-level clues. So in less than 10 seconds you can have a printable, shareable puzzle.
More resources:
- Nytimes Guide for Designing Puzzles
- Guardian Style Grid example
- Fill in puzzles
- Matt’s clue project
- Crossword Compiler (windows)
What About AI?
Yeah why not just use AI to build it? Well in my experience, the AI tools just aren’t there yet. They are good for writing clues, brainstorming themes, and suggesting entries. But they cannot create a good crossword grid and autofill it.
That’s part of why I moved forward on making the Crossword Generator, above, because I found AI tools couldn’t make a crossword.
But I still think AI is useful as part of your crossword workflow:
- Using a dedicated crossword construction engine for building the grid and autofilling the puzzle
- Use AI for generating clue ideas (see below)
- Human editing to improve accuracy, fairness, and personality
Tip: If you use my Crossword Generator, one cool way to improve it after completing the autofill of your puzzle is to export the puzzle and have an AI look over the puzzle and see if it can identify words in your puzzle that could be “re-themed” into better clues. To do this, click the “File > Export as JSON” and then drag that .json file into your ChatGPT or Claude, and ask it to “improve some of the clues around your ______ theme.“ It’ll go through your random fill words and come up with creative clues to extend your theme.
Which Tool Should You Choose?
If you’re just starting out, Crosshare or Ingrid are excellent free choices. If you’re a professional constructor, Crossword Compiler remains the gold standard.
And if your goal is simply to make a personalized New York Times-style crossword in seconds… with your own theme words, automatic filling, AI-generated clues, free printing, and QR codes linking back to the interactive puzzle… you probably already know which tool I’d recommend. 😉
Let me know if you’ve got any other recs by leaving a comment below.
This site is crazy, great job!