Editing the Grid

The grid editor in Crossword Studio serves multiple purposes: Displays your crossword puzzle Lets you edit the grid's shape (where the black cells are) Lets you edit the grid's contents (text) Displays warnings about problems in your crossword puzzle

Editing Grid Shape

To toggle a cell between white and black...

• Double-click the cell
• Click the "Toggle cell (black/white)" toolbar button
• Right-click a cell and choose "Make Cell Black/White"
• Choose "Edit > Make Cell Black/White" in the menu bar
• Press ' or ` in the grid editor

You can also toggle many cells in one fell swoop by "painting" in the grid with your mouse:

• Hold down Ctrl, then click and drag the mouse across several grid cells.
  (Whether you are "painting" white or black depends on the cell you start on).

Crossword Studio automatically adjusts the numbering of all the answer slots in your puzzle when you toggle a cell. Letters stay in the cells they were in, and clues you've written stay with the same slots (if making a cell white merges two slots, their clues are merged as well).

Most crossword puzzles are symmetrical. When you toggle a grid cell, Crossword Studio automatically toggles the diagonally opposite cell to maintain this symmetry. To make non-symmetrical puzzles, you can disable this feature by clicking the "Keep grid symmetrical" toolbar button.

Entering Text

To edit the text in the grid, click in a grid cell and begin typing. The cursor will follow you as you type, moving in the direction its arrow is pointing.

To fill in an entire answer slot with a suggestion from the matches list, just click the item in the list.

If you edit a grid slot after you've already written a clue for it, Crossword Studio highlights the clue in red to remind you that it may need to be updated. See Writing Clues: "stale" clues for details.

Deleting Text

Once you've typed text into the grid, there are several ways to make cells blank again.

To clear a single cell, click the cell and type...

• Spacebar – makes the selected cell blank; advances the cursor as if you'd typed a letter
• Delete – same as spacebar
• Backspace – makes the selected cell blank; moves the cursor backwards

To clear an entire slot...

• Choose "Edit > Clear Slot" – makes all the cells in the selected answer slot blank
  (or right-click)
• Choose "Edit > Clear Slot, but keep crossings" – makes cells in the selected slot blank if they are not part of a word filled into a slot crossing this one perpendicularly
  (or right-click, or choose "Edit > Cut", or press Ctrl+X or Shift+Delete)

To clear all text in the entire grid, choose "Puzzle > Clear > All Answers" (or "Both" to clear clues also) from the menu bar.

Moving Text Around

To quickly shift text within a partially-filled grid slot...

• Press Shift+Arrow key
• Right-click and choose "Shift Text Left/Right/Up/Down"

To quickly move text between different grid slots, use the clipboard (Cut/Copy/Paste):

• Select a slot and copy its contents – press Ctrl+C, or choose "Edit > Copy" from the menu bar.
  (Or cut its contents, leaving the cell blank – Ctrl+X, Shift+Delete, or "Edit > Cut").
• Select another slot and paste the text into it – press Ctrl+V, press Shift+Insert, or choose "Edit > Paste" from the menu bar.

You can also cut/copy text and then paste it into a different application on your computer, or cut/copy text from a different application and paste it into your Crossword Studio puzzle.

Slots never change in size when you paste text. So if you are pasting text into a slot that is too short for the text, the ending of the text will be cut off. If you are pasting text into a slot that is too long, the ending of the slot will be left blank.

Warnings

Crossword Studio uses red highlighting in the grid to indicate several potential problems with your puzzle:

	A slot is only one or two letters long (slot's background has red arrows). Many publications do not permit these "unchecked squares."
	A slot is filled in with text that is not in the answer dictionary (text is red). This may indicate a misspelling or typo. To stop this warning, add the answer to the dictionary.
	A slot's answer is used somewhere else in the same puzzle (text is red). Most publications do not permit duplicated answers. Select the slot to see the other duplicate location(s) highlighted with a red border (second image at left).

If you're not sure why a warning is appearing, hover your mouse pointer over it for a moment and an explanation will pop up.