Free tool
Crossword Puzzle Maker
Type your words and clues, take a deck, or let AI pick the words from a YouTube lesson, a PDF or your notes. Solve the crossword here, print it with the answer key on its own sheet, or send a link.
- Free, no signup
- From a lesson or your own word list
- Print the puzzle and the key
Most of these words share no characters with each other, so they cannot cross in a crossword grid. Use the worksheet generator to make matching and fill-in-the-blank exercises from the same words, or make a word search.
Decks come from the flashcard tools on this site and are kept in this browser. No model is called for a deck.
No deck in this browser yet. Make one in the Flashcard Maker or the AI flashcard generator, or paste your words on the first tab. Open the Flashcard Maker →
The puzzle and the answer key print on separate sheets, in black and white, one page each at the default size. To keep a PDF, choose “Save as PDF” in the print dialog.
Turn your own lectures into puzzles, flashcards and quizzes — record them in the SozAI app.Get the app →
How it works
Crossword Puzzle Maker in three steps
Add your words
Type or paste words with clues, take a deck, or let AI pick them from a lesson.
Pick size and numbering
Choose a small, medium or large grid and how the clues are numbered.
Solve, print or share
Solve online, print the puzzle and the answer key on separate sheets, or send a link.
What the crossword maker does
Give it words and clues and it lays out a crossword: the words are the answers, the clues are your definitions. You can type or paste the list, take the cards of a deck you made in the flashcard tools, or point it at a lesson (a YouTube link, a PDF, pasted notes or a recording) and let an AI model pick the words and write short clues. You solve the puzzle on the page, print it, and print the answer key on its own sheet.
The grid is built in your browser. It tries between 110 and 220 layouts, depending on how many words you give it, and keeps the one that places the most words with the most crossings in the smallest square. "Make another layout" tries again. A word that cannot cross any other word is listed under the puzzle as left out, so nothing disappears quietly.
How teachers use it
- Paste the vocabulary of the unit, one word per line with its definition after a dash. Or load a deck from the flashcard maker, or give the AI a lesson video or a chapter.
- Choose the grid size and whether each clue shows its number of letters. Read the clues once: a clue that gives the word away is easy to change in the list, and the puzzle updates at once.
- Open Print, choose A4 or US Letter and print the puzzle. The name and date lines are on by default.
- Print the answer key separately and keep it. It is a different sheet, so it never goes out with the puzzle by accident.
- No printer in the lesson? Send the link or put the embed code on the class page. Students solve it on any device, without an account.
Limits, exactly
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Words in one puzzle | Up to 30. More are listed as left out. |
| Length of an answer | From 2 letters up to the side of the grid: 11, 15 or 21. |
| Grid size | Small up to 11 × 11, medium up to 15 × 15, large up to 21 × 21. |
| What counts as a letter | Letters and digits. Spaces, hyphens and punctuation are dropped from the answer; the clue still shows the word lengths, like (3,5) for "ice cream". |
| Source for the AI | A YouTube link with captions, a PDF read in your browser (up to 50 MB), pasted text, or the first 5 minutes of a recording. Up to 60,000 characters of text; a longer source is cut down evenly from start to end. |
| Words the AI picks | 10, 15, 20 or 30. Each device can ask the AI for 10 word lists a day, because it runs on free models. |
| Share link | The words travel inside the link, up to 12,000 characters of encoded text. A longer list cannot be shared by link; print it instead. |
Arabic and Hebrew crosswords run right to left, and Thai and Hangul words keep their syllables and marks together in one cell. Japanese, Chinese and Korean words rarely share a character, so most of them cannot cross: when fewer than six in ten words fit, the page says so and draws no grid. The word search and the worksheet generator work for those languages.
A crossword made by this tool
This crossword was made by the tool from a real lecture, with nothing edited by hand. The source is the transcript of 2. Thermodynamics Part 2, a lecture from MIT OpenCourseWare published under a Creative Commons license. The AI picked the terms and wrote the clues; the page laid out the grid.
| 1 | 2 | |||||||||||||||||
| 3 | 4 | |||||||||||||||||
| 5 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 6 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 7 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 8 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 9 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 10 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 11 | ||||||||||||||||||
Across
- A state function depending only on initial and final states. (8,6)
- No engine can be more efficient than a Carnot engine between the same temperatures. (6,9)
- Intensive coordinates corresponding to generalized displacements. (9,6)
- An experiment showing no temperature change in an isolated dilute gas. (5,9)
- Heat cannot spontaneously flow from a colder to a hotter body. (8,9)
- The state in which thermodynamic systems are characterized by a set of properties. (11)
- A model system described by pressure and volume coordinates. (5,3)
Down
- The conjugate variable to temperature in thermodynamic work formulas. (7)
- The condition where systems exchange no heat when in contact. (7,11)
- A reversible engine operating between two fixed temperatures. (6,6)
- Containers that allow no heat exchange with the environment. (9,5)
Answer key
| 1I | N | T | E | R | N | A | L | E | N | 2E | R | G | Y | |||||
| N | ||||||||||||||||||
| 3K | E | L | V | I | N | S | 4T | A | T | E | M | E | N | T | ||||
| H | R | |||||||||||||||||
| 5C | O | N | J | U | G | A | T | E | F | O | R | C | E | S | ||||
| R | P | 6C | ||||||||||||||||
| M | Y | 7A | A | |||||||||||||||
| A | D | R | ||||||||||||||||
| L | I | N | ||||||||||||||||
| 8J | O | U | L | E | E | X | P | A | N | S | I | O | N | |||||
| Q | B | T | ||||||||||||||||
| 9C | L | A | U | S | I | U | S | S | T | A | T | E | M | E | N | T | ||
| I | T | N | ||||||||||||||||
| 10E | Q | U | I | L | I | B | R | I | U | M | G | |||||||
| I | C | I | ||||||||||||||||
| B | W | N | ||||||||||||||||
| R | A | E | ||||||||||||||||
| 11I | D | E | A | L | G | A | S | |||||||||||
| U | L | |||||||||||||||||
| M | S |
What stays in your browser
A typed list, a pasted list and a deck never leave your browser: the layout, the solving and the printing run on this page and no model is called. A share link keeps the words after the # sign, which browsers do not send to any server. The AI path is different. The text of your source, with its title or file name, is sent to a free AI model to pick the words and write the clues, and the finished list is kept on our server for up to 30 days so that the same source gives the same list at once. The words the AI picks are also saved as a deck in your browser.
Answers
Crossword maker: frequently asked questions
Is the crossword maker free?
Yes, and it needs no account. A crossword from a typed list or a deck has no limit, because nothing is sent anywhere. Picking words with AI runs on free models, so each device can do it 10 times a day.
How many words can a crossword have?
Up to 30. How many of them fit depends on how many letters they share: a word that crosses none of the others is listed as left out. A larger grid, or "Make another layout", usually places more.
Can I write my own clues?
Yes. Type one word per line, then a dash and the clue, like "glacier — a slow river of ice". A tab, a semicolon, a colon or a comma also works as the separator. A word without a clue shows only its length.
Can I print the crossword and the answer key?
Yes. Print opens the puzzle on A4 or US Letter in black and white, with name and date lines. The answer key prints on a separate sheet, so the two never share a page. To keep a PDF, choose Save as PDF in the print dialog. You can also download either sheet as a PNG image.
Can I make a crossword from a YouTube video or a PDF?
Yes. Open From a lesson, paste the link or choose the PDF, and the AI picks 10 to 30 terms with short clues. Check them before you print: the model can be wrong, and the list is editable. Videos need captions, and a scanned PDF without a text layer cannot be read.
Can students solve it online?
Yes. Solve online has a grid you fill by typing, with Check, Reveal letter, Reveal word and Reveal all. Share or embed gives a link and an iframe code for a class page. No account is needed.
Does it work in Arabic, Hebrew or Thai?
Yes. Arabic and Hebrew grids run right to left. Thai letters keep their vowel and tone marks in the same cell. Japanese, Chinese and Korean words rarely share a character, so a crossword usually cannot place most of them; the page then says so and points to the word search and the worksheet generator.
Are the AI clues always right?
No. Free AI models write them from your source and can get a fact wrong or give away the answer. Read every clue before a class sees it. A bad transcript or a scanned page also gives bad clues.
Study from your own lectures
Record a lecture in the SozAI app and get the transcript, a summary, flashcards and a quiz from it — with spaced repetition on your phone.
Free on iOS and Android. 30 minutes of transcription included, no card.
