Placing theme words

This function is only available if you purchased the Professional Grid Filler (order online).

Some standard puzzles have a few themed words in the grid. The Fit theme words feature is designed to help you chose a grid and place some theme words. The feature scans all the available grid patterns for your chosen grid size and works out which grids can fit your theme words. It then shows you the words in possible arrangements in the grid and lets you test-fill around them.

To use the theme word placing feature start a new crossword as usual, and then press the Fit theme words button in the Create New Puzzle window (at the step where you would otherwise choose a grid pattern). A window pops up where you enter the theme words you want to fit (unlike making a vocabulary puzzle, ALL of the the words you supply will be used; however, if no grid can fit all the words it will show also show you a partial fit).

If you don't know exactly which theme words to use, click the theme list generator button () to generate a list for you base on your input theme description.

There are option boxes you can check:

Place symmetrically forces the theme words to be placed so that their arrangement is consistent with standard 'S'-symmetry of the grid
Place in order fits the words in the across direction only, such that the words are placed in the order given. This is useful for example for using a multi-word phrase.
Use longest word slots will ensure that the longest theme words fill all longest word slots in the grid, with no longer word slots left empty.

When you have entered your theme words press the OK button. The program will then scan all grid patterns available at the grid size you have chosen and filter the list of grid patterns so that only those that can fit the words are shown. Click on a grid pattern to see the words placed in that grid.

The Rebus letters box can be used to specify multiple letters that should be placed in one square (as multi-letter squares).

There may be more than one way to fit the words into a given grid. Press the arrow buttons at the top right of the grid preview to see the next (or previous) possible fill arrangement. Click New random fit to randomly place the words in a different possible arrangement. To check whether it is possible to fill around the theme words with words from your default word list press Fill around. If the fill succeeds you will be shown the corresponding fill as usual with the option to accept it. If the fill fails you are returned to the Create New Puzzle window so that you can try a different grid or word arrangement.

Instead of directly entering the theme words you can also use the Filter button to select specific combinations of word lengths that you require. If you increase the Min count number, it will only show grids that have at least that many word slots of that length. To avoid words of a particular length, you can tick the checkbox but leave Min count at zero. If the No longer box is checked, the longest word length that you are filtering on will be the longest-length slot available in the grid (with no longer empty slots).

If no existing grid patterns work to fit your theme words, you can use the Grid Pattern Generator to generator new grids to your specification.