Crossword puzzles are notoriously difficult to build. This is the fastest tool for making a themed NYTimes or Guardian style crossword puzzle with your own theme words, autofill, and automatic clues.
Sketch a grid (or generate one), add a few theme words, and hit to have a solver fill the entire grid in seconds from a database of several hundred thousand words. The autofill heavily favors words that you know, so that your puzzles will be fun to solve. You can edit your clues, print it, share and publish it online.
Watch a video about how to make a crossword puzzle
Getting started
How to use the Crossword Generator
Everything starts with the button (go ahead and click that one; it'll scroll you right up to the real thing). Pick a grid size, then start from a generated pattern, a blank grid you draw yourself, or a few theme words for the puzzle to be built around.
Sometimes you'll hit Auto-Fill and it just can't finish. Some layouts genuinely have no clean fill. When that happens, swap the layout: click under the grid to cycle through fresh black-square patterns, then Auto-Fill again. A new arrangement usually fills on the first try.
Clues are generated automatically as the grid fills in, but a few answers won't get one, and you'll probably want to rewrite some in your own voice anyway. Open the tab in the shelf beside the grid to fill in the blanks, tweak any clue, or lean on an AI suggestion when you're stuck.
Three steps
How it works
1
Start a grid
Pick a size and generate black squares, draw your own, or paste in a few theme words to build the puzzle around.
2
Auto-fill it
The generator searches a database of several hundred thousand words and fills every slot with answers that cross cleanly, not just the words you typed. Lock the ones you like and re-fill the rest.
3
Clue, print & share
Add clues (or get a few AI suggestions when you're stuck), then print a blank sheet plus an answer key, save it, or publish it for anyone to solve.
The backstory
Why a crossword generator?
Back in the twenty-teens, my friends and I did the New York Times crossword every morning at Cobra Club in Bushwick. This spot was a bar in the evening and a coffee shop in the morning. We'd usually get there right as the paper was arriving and work through it with the staff and regulars.
The morning crossword at Cobra Club in Bushwick, worked through with the bartender
At some point we started talking about making a Bushwick-themed crossword, and I tried building one. Turns out it's pretty hard to make a NYTimes-style crossword puzzle, especially around your own theme words.
So I started working on building a tool that could generate a crossword puzzle, and this is the result. You bring the theme words, and it does everything else, from generating crossword grids to autofilling the puzzle and even helping make the clues.
Clues & answers
FAQs for Crossword Generator
Start a grid, add a few theme words (or none), and hit Auto-Fill to complete the rest. Then write or generate clues and print or publish. The whole thing takes a couple of minutes.
Yes. Add your words and then hit "Auto-fill" and watch it generate a grid and fill the remaining words. You can generate a full newspaper-style crossword, or select "criss-cross" if you want the stringy kind of crossword puzzle.
It does. A constraint solver (MAC backtracking with random restarts) searches a database of several hundred thousand words and fills your puzzle in a few seconds, preferring common, familiar words over obscure crosswordese. Your theme words are locked by default. You can then erase sections or lock any entries to auto-fill just a smaller section as well.
Not to build the puzzle. The grid is filled by a custom constraint solver that searches several hundred thousand words and tests combinations until every across and down entry crosses cleanly. AI does help with the clues. Many clues in our database were drafted with AI and checked against dictionary definitions, and members can ask for fresh AI suggestions when they're stuck.
In my experience, AI isn't very good at building a crossword from scratch, because it can't reliably make every word cross. It works much better as a partner to the solver. If you use Claude, Codex, or another AI agent, connect it to the Crossword Generator API (or the xword MCP server) and it can search words, autofill grids, write clues, and publish puzzles directly. Or keep it simple: choose File > Download JSON, ask an AI to improve the clues for your theme, then use File > Import to bring the file back.
I made this for regular folks who want to quickly design a NYT-style crossword for a gift, a classroom, a party, a proposal. That said, the grid-filling engine underneath is the same kind constructors use professionally, so pros are welcome too: lock your seed entries, re-fill sections around them, and print a clean copy.
The English answers come from two open word lists: Crossword Nexus (MIT-licensed, scored for how crossword-friendly each entry is) and ENABLE (public domain). The other 23 languages draw on open dictionaries and word-frequency lists. The clues are our own: dictionary definitions plus original clues written for the site, many drafted with AI and checked against those definitions. We don't copy clues from published newspaper crosswords.
No. Clues you write stay in your puzzle and are never added to our clue database. The one exception is AI suggestions: when you pick one, the AI's original wording may be saved so it can be suggested to other constructors. If you then edit that clue, your version stays yours and isn't added.
Yes! Printing is one of the best uses of the Crossword Generator, because it makes a great gift, and it links to the published version here online. That way you can fill it out by hand using a pen OR complete the puzzle on your phone, tablet, or desktop.
Yes, the Crossword Generator is free for up to 13×13 puzzles. A paid membership unlocks bigger grids (15×15 NYTimes-style Standard through 23×23 Sunday) plus AI clue suggestions. This paid subscription also includes other tools across texs.org, including the VHS Label Maker and more.
Not to start: jump in and build. Sign in with your texs.org account to save your puzzles and keep drafts across devices, or publish one to the Showcase for anyone to solve.
The editor
Who made this Crossword Generator
Hi, I'm Tex and I put this crossword generator together so that anyone can easily make themed newspaper-style crossword puzzles, in any language. I've got some more cool projects that you can see back at texs.org! Feel free to email me or send me a DM:
