FAQ's for Crossword Weaver

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*What is Crossword Weaver?*
Crossword Weaver is fully automated crossword puzzle construction software. It is easy to use. It takes takes your words and makes crossword puzzles out of them. It makes two styles of Crossword puzzles: the free-form puzzles that are popular with educators, and the symmetrical style you see in newspapers. The hard work of making the puzzle is completely handled by the computer.
Does it use only my words?
If you want a newspaper-style puzzle, it will mix some of your words with its high quality crossword puzzle database to create your puzzle.	If you want a free-form puzzle, it will use only your words.
*How challenging are the puzzles to solve?*
For newspaper puzzles: even those people that find normal newspaper crossword puzzles too difficult will love the puzzles you make with Crossword Weaver.	The difficulty of the free-form puzzles depends solely on which words you use and how you clue them.
*How many of my words can I expect to get in a puzzle?*
The English language does put limitations on the number of theme words that can be placed in a puzzle. The more words you put in a theme word list and the bigger your puzzle is the more of your words will fit in your puzzles. For a 15x15 crossword puzzle you can expect to get around 30 theme words in if you have about 400 words in your theme word list, or it can place 7-9 theme words from a word list of 20 words, assuming you use fairly short words.	For Free-form: as many as you want. Realistic answer: I had a theme word list of 450 words and I set the pattern size at 51x51 (the maximum). It got over 200 words into my puzzle. Of course it spanned three pages! A more normal puzzle, (around 23x23 for the free form style) would have about 30 words, depending on your word length.
*Do I have to write my own clues?*
For newspaper puzzles, a clue will be assigned for almost every word in your puzzle. You can keep the clues you like, select among alternates provided by the software or write your own.	For free-form puzzles, some of your words may have clues if your words are in the program's dictionary, but more likely you will need to write your own clues.
*Do I have to draw my own patterns?*
No. A pattern that is appropriate for your words will be chosen for you. But you can draw your own pattern if you wish. There are many tools to aid you in puzzle design if you really want to draw your own.	No. Free-form puzzles don't have patterns.
*Can I export the puzzles I make to other programs?*
Yes you can. You can export to almost any Windows program, including Microsoft^® Publisher and all Windows^® versions of WordPerfect^®. It uses "metafiles" which are resizable and work well with Windows programs.
*What system does it run on?*
Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98 and Windows NT. It does not run on a Mac, but does run on SoftWindows, Power PC, or other Windows emulators.
*Can I put medical terms into crossword puzzles?*
Yes. You can use any words you want as long as they use the Roman alphabet (the normal English alphabet) and have no symbols or numbers. We have also been asked about biblical words and computer science terms. These also work well.
Does Crossword Weaver support foreign words?
Your theme words can be in any language you want as long as it uses the Roman alphabet. The program only has an English dictionary, and so the filler words will be in English. You can write your clues in any language you wish.	Yes as long as you use the Roman alphabet. You can make a theme word list of foreign words, and it will construct a puzzle for you using only those words. You can also write your clues in any language you want.
*How long can the clues be?*
255 characters, which means basically as long as you want. To give you an idea of how long that is, this sentence that you are reading right now only contains 116 characters.
*How long does it take to construct a puzzle?*
It is very fast. It is optimized for creating puzzles very quickly. Most puzzles are done in a few seconds.
Why are there red and blue words in my puzzle?
Those are your theme words. The theme words that read across are red and the theme words that read down are blue.
I am having a hard time downloading. What do I do?
E-mail us your name and address and we will mail you a demo diskette. You can also try downloading from the other site (there are two choices, Texas and Utah) or you can try at a less busy time.
Do I need to be on-line for Crossword Weaver to work?
No. Crossword Weaver runs solely on your computer and has nothing to do with the Internet.

Copyright © 2000 [Variety Games, Inc.]. All rights reserved. Revised: December 6, 2000.

Copyright © 2000 [Variety Games, Inc.]. All rights reserved.
Revised: December 6, 2000.