Q&A for How to Make Crossword Puzzles

Yes. You can do it through the puzzlefoundry.com website. It also has a crossword builder and word-pattern search functionality.

You can black them out with a pen or marker, if you've printed it out. If you're doing it on the computer before printing, you can do it with Paint or a similar program (using the paint bucket tool).

Highlight the number of squares that will be used, then click border. It will make your crossword puzzle stand out.

No, crosswords are made for people to think about the answer, not to be inputted by provided answers.

There are many websites that allow you to create crossword puzzles. Most of them ask you for a grid size, the words you have chosen, and hints. On those websites, the placement of words is random. You could also use applications like MS Paint to create a crossword puzzle.

There's really no practical reason for it. It's just an esthetic tradition. You could construct a puzzle just as easily without that symmetry!

No, but it would be good if you use words that most people would know.

Because in crosswords words are conjoined. If there is a small word such (eg. cat) and say one or more letter of the word has been found, it would be way too simple to figure out the word. There is no rule saying you can't use short words. You might want to make it easy to figure out or maybe you've found a word that is hard to find (e.g., iota).

Starting off, you will need to make a list of words you want to be in your crossword. Don't make it a huge list because you might not be able to fit all of them in. Next draw a square grid, preferably 15 by 15 squares. Then use a pencil to draft your words onto the grid, remembering to erase them off once you are done. This is the chance to remove any words you couldn't fit on the grid from your list. The words have to be written in a conjoined format (as shown above). Then you must prepare clues for your words so the person figuring it out can actually do it. Write the the clues where the person can easily refer to them.

Black is used for contrast, but you can use some other fairly dark color if you want.

That's the usual method, but some puzzles are constructed without any blacked-out squares, and the player is responsible for adding the black squares as they go. That makes the puzzle much harder to solve!