free tool, no sign-up
Crossword Puzzle Generator
Create custom crossword puzzles with your own words and clues. Perfect for vocabulary building, classroom activities, and educational games.
Format: word, clue (one entry per line)
Enter words with clues and click
"Create Puzzle" to generate
The Crossword Puzzle Generator creates professional-looking crossword puzzles from your own words and clues. Perfect for teachers wanting to create engaging vocabulary reviews, parents making educational activities, or anyone who enjoys puzzles. Enter your word-clue pairs, and the generator automatically arranges them into an interlocking crossword grid. Download or print the puzzle along with its answer key. Great for reinforcing spelling, definitions, and subject-specific vocabulary.
Type your words and clues, one pair per line
The whole input is a single box. Each line is one entry, written as the word, then a comma, then the clue: apple, a red or green fruit. The first comma splits the line, so commas inside the clue itself are fine. Press Create Puzzle and the grid is built in front of you.
Words are converted to capitals automatically, and anything that is not a letter is stripped out, so hyphens, apostrophes and spaces quietly disappear. Ice cream becomes ICECREAM. A line is only counted if the word has at least two letters and there is a clue after the comma, and the Words counter above the box tells you how many entries the crossword puzzle maker can actually see. You need at least two before the button turns on.
If you just want to see what comes out, the Add sample words link fills the box with six animals and fruits and their clues. Clear it and paste your own spelling list over the top when you are ready.
How the words get interlocked
The generator works on a 20 by 20 board. It sorts your list longest word first, drops the longest one across the middle, then tries every shared letter between each remaining word and everything already on the board. A word is only kept if it crosses an existing word at a matching letter, does not butt up against another word end to end, and does not run alongside one. That is why the finished grid is properly interlocked rather than a pile of words sitting near each other.
Once everything that fits is placed, the board is cropped to the words plus one square of margin, and the numbers are assigned top to bottom, left to right in the usual crossword order. Clues are then split into Across and Down lists under the grid.
Some words will not fit. A word with unusual letters, or one that shares no letter with anything else on the list, has nowhere to cross, and it is listed in an amber note underneath: could not place, followed by the words. Click Scramble and the whole crossword is rebuilt with the intersections tried in a different order, which very often finds a home for the stragglers. It is worth a couple of clicks before you start editing your word list. Adding one or two extra words with common letters, especially ones containing E, A, R or S, gives the solver more to hook onto.
Worksheet and answer key, in five colour themes
Two tabs sit above the preview. Worksheet is the blank grid with numbered squares and the clue lists, which is the sheet the children get. Answer Key shows the same grid with every letter filled in, and each word tinted its own colour, with the matching clue highlighted in the same colour underneath. Marking a pile of sheets is a lot quicker when you can see at a glance which squares belong to 7 Down.
The Theme dropdown offers Classic, Ocean, Forest, Sunset and Lavender. Classic is plain black on white and uses the least ink. The other four tint the squares and the title in blue, green, orange or purple, which is handy if you want a seasonal sheet or simply want this week's crossword to look different from last week's.
The title at the top is editable. It defaults to Crossword Puzzle, but Chapter 4 Vocabulary or Year 5 Spring Spellings is more use when a stack of sheets comes back in.
Printing and saving your crossword
Print Worksheet opens a clean print view in a new tab with just the title, grid and clues, and sends it straight to your printer dialogue. Squares come out at 28 pixels, which is a comfortable size for a pencil and fits most puzzles on one portrait sheet of US Letter or A4. If a wide grid runs off the edge, switch the printer to landscape or let it scale to fit. Switch to the Answer Key tab first and the button becomes Print Answer Key, and the print view is set up to keep the colour shading rather than dropping it the way browsers usually do with background colours.
Download Image saves the preview as a PNG at double resolution, named after your title, with answer-key added to the filename when the key is showing. That is the version to drop into a slide, a newsletter or a homework email rather than printing.
Nothing is uploaded and nothing is saved. Your words and clues live in the browser tab only, so closing it loses them. If you expect to reuse a list, keep it in a note or a document and paste it back in next term.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I make a crossword puzzle with my own words?
Type each word and its clue on its own line, separated by a comma, then press Create Puzzle. Two entries is the minimum, and ten to twenty gives a nicely filled grid.
Is this crossword generator free?
Yes. It is free, there is no account and no sign-up, and the puzzle is built in your browser rather than on a server.
Why did some of my words not get placed?
Every word after the first has to cross an existing word at a shared letter, so a word with no letters in common with the rest of the list has nowhere to go. Click Scramble to rebuild the grid a different way, or add a word or two with common letters.
Can I print an answer key?
Yes. Switch to the Answer Key tab and press Print Answer Key. Each word is shaded a different colour in the grid and its clue is highlighted to match.
How many words can one crossword hold?
The board is 20 squares across, so any word longer than 20 letters is rejected outright. In practice ten to twenty words interlock well; past that, more of them tend to end up in the could-not-place list.
Can I save the puzzle as an image instead of printing?
Press Download Image and you get a PNG of whichever tab you are viewing, saved at twice normal resolution so it stays sharp in a slide or a document.
What age is a custom crossword puzzle suitable for?
From about age seven upwards, once children are confident spelling the words unaided. For younger children, keep the list to six or eight short words and write clues as plain descriptions rather than wordplay.
Can I use punctuation or two-word answers?
You can type them, but spaces, hyphens and apostrophes are stripped, so ice cream is placed in the grid as ICECREAM. Mention that in the clue so nobody is caught out.