Word Ideas

Word Ideas is a powerful tool to help find words that increase the puzzle's density, difficulty, and beauty. Of course you can also use it to help solve crosswords from other sources.

• To open Word Ideas go to the "Window" menu at the top of the Crossword Forge page, then select Word Ideas.



- or you can simply select it from the toolbar -




• When the Word Ideas window opens it is blank. The example on the right shows Word Ideas with word pairs.
• Three symbols provide a lot of power and flexibility.


1. The question mark ?
   • Use the question mark “?” as a placehoder for unknown letters or characters.


2. The asterisk *
• Use the asterisk “*” as a placeholder for optional unknown characters or letters.
• These can be used at the beginning or at the end of a sequence or pattern. This allows Word Ideas to find words of various length that might fit.


3. The percentage sign %
• Use the percentage sign “%” as a place holder for a common unknown character or letters that are common to two words. Only one % may be used for each word pair. Separate the word pair with a single space.

• => fr?g would match “frog”
• => **?ing would match “sing”. “thing” amd “spring”.
• => ca% %ar would match these pairs: (“cab”, “bar”) and (“cat, “tar”).




In the example below we are seeking a word to fit vertical above the "C" and joining the "L".



Below is a sample of the words found by Word Ideas.



We chose "rictal," added it to our answer set, and here is the result after we used "Update Puzzle" from the "Edit" menu.

1. Word Ideas is not case-sensitive.
2. You may have multiple Word Ideas windows open simultaneously. This can be particularly helpful when solving complex positioning issues.
3. If you need a reminder, Word Ideas "Usage Help" is available on every Word Ideas window on the lower left.
4. When using Word Ideas for word pairs, clicking on the gray triangle (the one pointing downward and to the right of the word) will show additional words with the same common letter.