I construct crosswords in my spare time. (Read about my first New York Times puzzle.) The industry standard software is Crossword Compiler, which is expensive and Windows-only. Until now, I used CMFC, an iPad app. But while at Recurse Center in NYC, Raph Levien and I built Phil, a free and powerful HTML5 puzzle-maker.
Phil imports and exports .PUZ, uses a high-quality custom dictionary, and generates a solvable PDF or NYT submission with one click.
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- Phil’s interface. A 100,000-entry custom dictionary creates across and down suggestions on-the-fly.
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- Phil supports its own native JSON format, the industry Across Lite standard, and can generate PDFs.
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- A solvable PDF (left) and a page from a New York Times submission. Phil creates either with a single click.