Clue squares are squares in the puzzle grid that contain short clues for surrounding words.
You can insert a clue square into the grid by double-clicking, or double-clicking while pressing Alt (depending on the setting in Grid Properties) To edit the clues in the square, and to change the arrows which come out of the square, place the cursor on the clue square and press Ctrl+E or click on the Edit Clue button on the Toolbar.
The Clue Square Editor
Entering clues
You can enter the clue or clues in the central square of the dialog box. The maximum number of lines is set in the Font Size box. Press Enter to end a line, and use a hyphen, alone on a line, for a horizontal line. So for two clues separated by a line you would enter
Clue 1In the grid the '-' will be converted to a full line. To fit more lines of text you can increase the lines per square. Using a half-integer number will use closer spacing around the line separating clues, allowing a slightly larger font to be used for the same number of lines of text.
-
Clue 2
The text you enter can either wrap onto the next line if it is too long, or the font size can be decreased to fit it. Click the small wrap button at the bottom left to toggle between the two modes.
To use a clue from the database press the Use clue button. To look up a word that you haven't just clicked the arrow for, double-click on the word itself.
Assigning arrows
Click on the arrow buttons at the size of the square for the arrows that you want. When you press an arrow button the word in the direction of the arrow is shown and any clues in the database for that word are also displayed. To add a diagonal arrow from a corner of the square, press the '+' button at the top right and select the arrow/word combination that you want. Arrows are only shown if there are corresponding word slots to link to.
Click the up/down arrows by the Left and Right clue buttons to move them up or down, or drag them where you want. This is useful to align the arrows with the position of the corresponding clue in the square.
Reviewing and formatting
When you have finished editing the clues press Enter, and you will see your clues appear in the square in the grid. Be careful to make sure that you don't write more than one clue for a given word, and that each word in the grid has a clue square with the arrow pointing in the correct direction.
The default number of lines (font size) is set under the Grid menu, Grid Properties, Advanced. There is also an option there for whether you want the dividers to be the full length of the clue square or not. The Arrow style tab of Grid Properties lets you customize the size, shape and position of the clue square arrows. Arrows are important to link clues to words in the grid. However, if you don't actually want to show arrows when published, there is a setting in Grid Properties (Arrow Style tab), to only show them while editing.