Product Description

Crossdown is a professional puzzle development application for making crosswords like the kind published in newspapers or in magazines. It affords the constructor total control over the build, requiring a maximum amount of creativity and skill. Crossdown is also capable of importing "word webs" or "criss-crosses" from puzzle generators to take advantage of Crossdown's superior features and options. This latest version of Crossdown includes Crossdown Librarian and Crossdown Cluebank. Librarian is a crossword puzzle database manager with which you can group any number of crosswords into collections for quick browsing, comparison, searching, duplicating and dozens of other uses. Crossdown Cluebank is a database for storing crossword puzzle clues. It is fully integrated with Crossdown, enabling you to bring up a list of clues to choose from for each grid entry, or "automatically" clue the entire puzzle with one click of the mouse. With Crossdown you can print crosswords in a variety of styles, and export puzzles in several popular graphic file formats for use with all word processors and desktop publishing software. You can deploy fully interactive crosswords to websites. You can generate puzzles as Adobe PDF files for distribution among other computer platforms. You can also generate standalone puzzle "player" game applications which can be run and solved on other Windows-based computers. Crossdown also incorporates a basic solve mode so puzzle authors can test out their own creations, or just have a little fun! Crossdown is developed by a crossword puzzle professional for other crossword puzzle professionals or serious amateurs. Crossdown supports all versions of Windows from XP to 98, and has an indexed, illustrated on-screen Help.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2511 in Software
• Brand: Crossdown
• Format: CD

Features

• Features 43-Page PDF User's Manual
• Automatic (speed) Clueing
• Both Across-Down and Grid-Based Clue Threading
• Crossdown Cluebank (included)
• Crossdown Librarian

Awards
ESC's People's Choice Award 1998,1999,2000,2001,2004 2002 SIAF Award Hobby Personal Interest Software 2004 SIAF People's Choice Award Computer Times Editors Choice

John M. Samson, Crosswords Editor, Simon & Schuster
"I edit all my Simon & Schuster crosswords with Crossdown."

Timothy Parker, Editor
"As editor of the USA Today Crossword and the full-line of Universal Crosswords, I use Crossdown software every day... indispensable."

Customer Reviews

Very User-Friendly
I've used Crossdown for several years in constructing my own
puzzles and editing crossword books for Simon & Schuster.
I like the uncomplicated nature of Crossdown. Clueing crosswords
is a snap with Crossdown...and it checks for grid symmetry and
duplicate words within the answer grid.
My magazine clients appreciate the professional graphic EPS files
(numbered solving diagrams and answer diagrams) Crossdown generates with the click of a mouse.
It also generates an online file for Web solvers.
There are several other features too numerous to mention...
buy it and you'll see what I mean!

--John M. Samson
Simon & Schuster

For Professionals and Serious Amateurs
Crossdown is the product to buy if you are serious about making authentic crossword puzzles and have the skills and desire needed for truly original creations. It is used by professionals the world over which gives you some idea of its capabilities. If you are looking for a quick utility that will build a simple word web from a predefined list of a dozen words or so -- and there are uses for these kinds of designs -- look elsewhere. Although Crossdown can import word webs from other sources to take advantage of Crossdown's impressive toolbox. With Crossdown you can export crossword puzzles in a variety of graphic formats, deploy interactive puzzles to websites, even generate single-puzzle games that can be run on other computers.

Slighty dissapointed
While the program is as described, I had a Win. 98 Crossword software that was easier to use. For example, type a list of words and it would auto fill a blank puzzle, and then I could type the clues. I am hoping that it will get easier to do with experience.