Summary: Codeword puzzles are made in Puzzle Maker Pro by choosing a grid size, picking Easy or Regular, and setting how many starter letters to reveal — the module builds the crossword, scrambles the alphabet into a 1-to-26 cipher, and renders the puzzle page with its matching solution page. This guide walks through your first one, titling it, and exporting print-ready and web-ready files.
Overview
A Codeword — a cipher crossword — is a crossword with the clues thrown away and every letter replaced by a number. Puzzle Maker Pro does all of the hard part: it builds an interlocked grid, fills it with English words, scrambles the alphabet into a cipher, chooses which letters to reveal as a head start, and prints the 1-to-26 key under the board. You choose the size, the mood, and how much help the solver gets. New to the puzzle itself? Read How Codeword Puzzles Work first.
Required Modules
Puzzle Maker Pro – Codeword. What each edition makes:
- Codeword (the Standard tier) builds puzzles from the built-in English word list on automatically built grids, exports JPG, PNG, SVG and PDF, and includes Instant Puzzle Books.
- Codeword Creative adds the Design grid editor, where you draw the black squares yourself and every puzzle in the run re-fills that shape, and Puzzle Book Studio Creative — full book editing for one collection.
- Codeword Productivity adds Time Saver for batch runs, Puzzle Book Studio Productivity, which combines several collections into one book, and JSON export.
- Codeword Creative + Interactive and Codeword Productivity + Interactive add online play: the exported HTML and the ZIP for the free Puzzle Maker Pro Online WordPress plugin.
You can move up to any higher edition after you buy — up the ladder, and Interactive on top of Creative or Productivity — so start with the one that fits what you are making today. See Puzzle Maker Pro Editions Explained.
Commercial rights: Codeword and Codeword Creative both carry the licence to sell the finished puzzle products you make — books, worksheets and printable packs — to your own readers and customers, including KDP, Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Codeword Productivity adds the right to sell or supply the puzzles themselves to other publishers and sellers.
A free demo is available, so you can make a Codeword before you buy: try the free demo. Demo output is a watermarked image.
Preparation
Nothing to install. Open Puzzle Maker Pro, choose Codeword in the Select a puzzle gallery, and the Creator panel opens on the Settings tab. Codeword fills every grid from its built-in English word list — it downloads once on first use and is cached on your PC after that, so the grid fills itself and there is no vocabulary to prepare.
The defaults — a 13×13 grid on Regular with 3 starter letters — are a good place to start, and every puzzle is generated together with its matching solution page.
Choose the Grid Size
On the Settings tab, set Grid size — 9 to 15, default 13.
Grid size steps in ones, but a generated board is always an odd size and the generator rounds up to the next one — set 10 and you get 11×11 — so pick 9, 11, 13 or 15 directly. A 9×9 is a warm-up; 13×13 is the standard sit; 15×15 is a long one.
Size also changes how much of the key arrives pre-filled. A smaller grid uses fewer of the twenty-six letters, and every letter the grid does not use is printed in the key from the start — so a 9×9 hands the solver a bigger head start than its size alone suggests. That is worth knowing when you are pitching a book at beginners.
Pick Easy or Regular and Set the Starter Letters
Pick the Difficulty first, because it resets the starter-letter count for you:
- Difficulty — Easy or Regular (default Regular). Both bands fill from the same pool of everyday English, so neither one reaches for harder words. What changes is the opening: Easy reveals more starter letters, and Regular reveals fewer and — at 13×13 and 15×15 — builds on a more open grid with longer entries, so a Regular puzzle takes longer to crack.
- Given letters — 0 to 10, the letters printed on the board to start the solver off. Choosing a difficulty sets this for you (Easy sets 6, Regular sets 3), and you can then type any value from 0 to 10 over it. Change the difficulty afterwards and it resets the count again, so always pick the difficulty first and type your own number second.
Remember that a given is a letter, not a square: reveal H and every H on the board prints, plus its box in the key. Only letters the board actually uses can be revealed, so a small grid that skips several letters simply gives you as many starters as it can offer. Set a lower count for a puzzle-a-day book aimed at regular solvers, and a higher one for a large-print or classroom pack where the first minute has to feel winnable.
Decide About “Include All 26 Letters”
Include all 26 letters (default off) biases the fill toward using more of the alphabet on the board itself. Turn it on when you want more of the alphabet deduced from the grid rather than read out of the key. It is a preference the fill works toward rather than a promise: any letter the grid still leaves out is printed in the key, so the puzzle finishes cleanly either way. Because it builds and compares several grids for each puzzle instead of taking the first that fills, a long run takes proportionally longer — worth leaving off while you are still trying settings out.
Draw Your Own Grid (Codeword Creative)
The one thing Codeword Creative adds to the Creator is the grid itself. Design grid… opens the Crossword Grid Editor. Set Rows and Columns and click Apply size, then place the black squares yourself with the Black square brush. Paint cells with the Void (omit from puzzle) brush instead and the page shows through rather than printing a block, so the grid can sit inside a shape — or drop an image on Silhouette (drop or click) to trace one.
A stored grid drives the whole run: every puzzle in the batch re-fills that same shape with fresh words and a fresh cipher, which is how you give a title one consistent look. The grid’s own size then wins over the Grid size you set on the Settings tab, so set the shape you want in the editor and let it lead.
Keep it inside what Codeword accepts: square, between 9 and 15, black squares symmetrical under a half-turn, no entry shorter than three letters, and every white square connected to the rest of the grid. Leave the editor’s Symmetry setting on Rotational 180° and it mirrors your squares for you as you draw. Check the shape against those limits before you start a long run. Unlike a generated board, an authored one may be an even size.
Set the Quantity
Quantity (1 to 999), in the bar above the tabs, runs the same settings that many times — each puzzle gets a fresh grid seed and a fresh cipher, so a batch does not repeat itself. When a book needs a mix of sizes or difficulties, use Time Saver (Codeword Productivity) instead — see Export, below.
Style It
On the Style tab, Background Color and Cell Fill Color work as usual. Two of Codeword’s controls are worth pointing out, because the puzzle uses them for its own parts: the cell border setting draws the grid lines, and the puzzle border colour fills the black blocks. The font you choose sets the letters — the givens and the solution — while the small cipher numbers in each corner keep their own built-in font, so a busy 15×15 stays readable without extra work. The style controls are otherwise the same on every module — see How to Customize Puzzle Designs in Puzzle Maker Pro.
Set the Title
On the Titles tab, pick how each puzzle is titled. Smart Titles work the same way on every module — see How to Create Smart Puzzle Titles in Puzzle Maker Pro for the mechanism. Codeword offers these options, in dropdown order, shown as they resolve for a 13×13 Regular puzzle:
- Codeword Grid Size Difficulty — e.g. “Codeword 13×13 – Regular”
- Codeword Grid Size — e.g. “Codeword 13×13” (the default)
- Codeword Difficulty — e.g. “Codeword Regular”
- Grid Size Difficulty — e.g. “13×13 – Regular”
- Grid Size — e.g. “13×13”
- Difficulty — e.g. “Regular”
- Custom — your own text, e.g. “Puzzle 24”
The same option set feeds the Description line under the title, which defaults to the rules in one sentence: “Every letter of the alphabet has been replaced by a number from 1 to 26. Work out which number stands for which letter and complete the crossword grid.” Put that on page one of the book and the reader needs nothing else.
Generate and Export
Use Refresh in the Preview group to draw one puzzle and Next Preview to step through more, pick your output formats and destination folder, then click Create to run the whole quantity. Every Codeword comes out as a pair: the puzzle page, showing the numbers, the starter letters and the partly filled key strip, and the solution page, showing every letter filled in and the complete key strip. That solution page is your answer key. Paid editions export JPG, PNG, SVG and PDF.
That pair is what makes a class set as easy as a book: print the puzzle page for the desks and keep the solution page as the teacher’s answer key.
- Instant Puzzle Books (every edition) builds the interior straight from your current book settings — page size, margins, titles, page numbers and the answer section — as a PDF or a PowerPoint deck. Those same settings are where you set a worksheet page up, so a one-per-page classroom sheet and a book interior come off the same controls.
- Puzzle Book Studio on Codeword Creative gives you full book editing for this one collection; on Codeword Productivity it combines several collections into one book and can shuffle the order so a title does not run twenty pages of the same setup.
- Time Saver on Codeword Productivity runs several rows in one go, each row with its own size, difficulty and quantity — the fastest way to build a mixed book. Rows can sit alongside other modules in the same sheet.
- JSON export on Codeword Productivity writes the puzzle data files for your own apps and workflows.
- Online play comes with Codeword Creative + Interactive and Codeword Productivity + Interactive. Publish the exported HTML through the free Puzzle Maker Pro Online WordPress plugin and the same puzzles play on your own pages as a list or a levelled game.
Outcome
You have a Codeword run: a numbered puzzle page and its matching solution page for every puzzle, titled the way your book titles them, in the formats you export. From here, Instant Puzzle Books turns the pairs into an interior, and Time Saver turns a mixed spec into one batch.
FAQ
Which edition do I need to batch-create?
Codeword Productivity. It adds Time Saver, which runs several rows — each with its own grid size, difficulty and quantity — in a single pass, and Puzzle Book Studio Productivity to combine those sets into one book.
What does Codeword Creative add?
The Design grid editor and Puzzle Book Studio Creative. Draw the black squares yourself and every puzzle in the run re-fills that same shape with fresh words and a fresh cipher, which is how a title gets one consistent look; Puzzle Book Studio Creative then gives you full book editing for that collection.
Do I get an answer key?
Yes. Every puzzle is generated with a matching solution page as a separate image, showing every letter filled into the grid plus the completed 1-to-26 key strip. It works either as the teacher copy of a worksheet or as the solutions section at the back of a book.
What formats can I export?
JPG, PNG, SVG and PDF on the paid editions, each puzzle with its matching solution page. Instant Puzzle Books writes the assembled book as a PDF or a PowerPoint deck from your current book settings. Demo output is a watermarked image.
Do I need an internet connection to create?
Only for the built-in word list on first use — it downloads once and is cached. After that you create on your Windows PC.
How many starter letters should I use?
Three is the Regular default and suits a puzzle-a-day book for regular solvers; six is the Easy default and suits large-print, beginner and classroom packs. Given letters runs 0 to 10, so you can tune it either way once you have picked the difficulty.