Crossword puzzles
Be it for a party newspaper or a company newsletter, crossword puzzles count on a true fan community. In this article QRS presents an Excel workbook that can generate a crossword puzzle. The dictionary may be freely amended. The word bounds are designated by the "@" character.
Concept
At the start, the puzzle range is analyzed, and for every row and column a list of word fields is initialized. The intersections are subsequently listed and organized in a tree structure, starting from the top left horizontal field. The latter is filled with a word fitting in length, then all intersections are processed one by one, and the field referred to is filled with a word containing the given letters. If no word is found, the program returns to the other field in the intersection and tries a different word. The hints to the words contained are left to the editor.
Demo video
The video besides shows how a puzzle is filled (using a german dictionary).
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