Crossdown Crossword Puzzle Maker Software for Windows

Not what I was expecting, too complicated for nothing. Save your money

Let me be clear, I ordered this as a Christmas present for my brother, so I can't review the software. However, the packaging I received it in was clearly not the original packaging. The case contained an insert which looked printed from a computer (it was crooked in the dvd case and faded looking...as many bootlegs appear), and the instructions were placed in the envelope it was mailed in, with no software box to contain it. If this were an inexpensive item, I'd have less of an issue, but for the price I paid and the fact it's being given as a present, I expected more than this.

I bought this for my father as a Christmas gift. He loves to solve crossword puzzles, and so does everyone in my family. I don't think he has tried it out yet, but I will write another review when he does. It came in perfect condition with the booklet with complete instructions, and it arrived on time. If the program works well, I will give it 5 stars!

I LOVE this program!I had made seven 15x15 puzzles by hand using Word, laying out the grids, putting in numbers, etc. Then typing clues, formatting the puzzle page... What a chore. I can do a puzzle now in half the time it was taking me before. Not only that, but I am saving a fortune in erasers during the design stage!I converted my first seven puzzles to Crossdown and now have a total of 27 complete since June 6. My wife loves to solve puzzles, but I found I got more challenge and enjoyment out of creating them. It now takes 3-6 hours to design a puzzle, depending on the difficulty of the grid (and she burns them up in about 25 minutes...) Once I grow the Cluebank database a bit more, that should save even more typing time.Tech support must not sleep! I had a small problem (I was overlooking a step) and emailed Tech Support at 12:58 am CDT Sunday morning, expecting an answer maybe in the next day or two. Imagine my astonishment when I received a reply from Mr. Bellotto himself at 2:08 am CDT Sunday morning with the step to perform to fix my difficulty! I had my oversight corrected less than ten minutes later.While this program doesn't create the puzzle for you, it takes all the drudge work out of the process. I can enter a grid from a newspaper or book puzzle I've seen and start adding words in seconds while the program takes care of the clue numbering. The `scan for duplicates' function can save the grief of discovering that the puzzle contains two (or more) occurrences of the same word after you thought the puzzle was done. It will also flag similar entries such as `area' and `areas'.I am having an absolute BLAST making puzzles for my wife and friends. The .pdf format files are easily attached to an email and sent anywhere and are more universal than the Word .doc files I had been using.This program lets me concentrate on fitting the words into the grid and not have to be concerned with laying out the printouts. Fixing a typo or changing a clue could require also redoing the formatting in Word, but takes only seconds with Crossdown doing all of the adjusting.I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this program for anyone who wants to design their own newspaper style crossword puzzles!

Ended up buying Crossword Compiler ver 9 which works great.

My mother used to create and sell crossword puzzles, and she did it all by hand (the old-fashioned way). Recently, my husband decided he wanted to give it a try so I bought this as a gift for him. So far he has used it only to make the grid and put the numbers in the grid, If you move entries around, it keeps track of that and re-numbers them for you. He hasn't tried using the clue bank and the other features of the program.

This program has lots of nice features. The one feature it does not have is auto-fill, which means you are going to have to find your own words and fill them into the puzzle.

Product is as advertised. Good packaging. Took a little time to learn how to use the program but it does what I want it to do. Use it to make puzzles for fun.