Crossword Compiler is a great tool for Windows machines, and there are about 40 really useful interactive English vocabulary puzzles on this site (linked to Graded Spelling Lists), all of which were made on a Windows machine some years ago.. Unfortunately, the software is not compatible with Mac machines, and since I've abandoned Windows, finding alternatives has not been easy.
I downloaded Crossword Express, a free piece of Software from crosswords.com, which does a huge range of puzzle types, but the interface is far too busy for my liking, and the tutorial feature is too bitty. When I started getting Malware warning popups, I uninstalled it. Puzzle Maker from Hokua Software looked much simpler, and after downloading the free demo, I decided to buy it. I've managed to make a word search and a crossword, but it's been a long process. Word lists can be imported from csv files, but since most of mine are stored as text files, they all had to be renamed. Once I'd done that, I got error messages on many - but not all - of them suggesting the files could be corrupt. I found a way round - imported the word lists into Quizlet, made some flashcards and then exported them back to my desktop, and from there into Puzzle Maker. Really time consuming. There were other drawbacks: I couldn't find a way of adding title, footer or author information without exporting to Pages, which turned out to be disastrous, as Pages threw up odd symbols instead of the Across / Down labels, and once I had sorted that out and exported puzzles once more as PDF, Pages could not save, close or delete the puzzles. Force quit sorted it out eventually. But two puzzles in a day is not the sort of output I expect from software when I have all the word lists I need ready made. So I'm still looking for something that has a clean, simple interface, has a clear tutorial, is fully customisable, will produce interactive puzzles and will export good quality PDFs for printing or for presentations. Most of which is what Crossword Compiler offers.
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