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cwpuzzle.sty
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a LaTeX package for typesetting crossword puzzles and more
Gerd Neugebauer
CROSSWORD PUZZLES
Since I know only of one additional package for typesetting crossword
puzzles on CTAN -- named crosswrd.sty -- I will compare it against
this package to show the advantages and disadvantages of both
packages.
I have developed cwpuzzle.sty because I needed to typeset a puzzle
which required more features than those provided by crosswrd. The
feature I was missing was the inclusion of rectangular regions in the
puzzles containing ads or other texts not directly related to the
characters to be filled in.
I have generalized this requirement by allowing arbitrary rectangles
to be left free. Thus it is possible to typeset puzzles which have no
rectangular border (See the documentation for examples).
Another idea was to have different types of puzzles generated from the
same source:
- The classical puzzle contains numbers for the words and clues for
the words to be filled in.
- The numbered puzzle contains numbers in each cell where identical
numbers represent identical letters. The goal is to find out which
number corresponds to which letter.
- The fill-in type of puzzle consists of a grid and a list of words.
The goal is to place all words in the grid.
crosswrd supports the first type of puzzle only. cwpuzzle supports all
of them.
The input for both packages is completely different. crosswrd assumes
that a user uses this package to develop a puzzle. Thus it is tailored
towards a human user. It checks for consistency and requires
non-redundant input. (As a unpleasant side effect fragile macros used
in clues have to be protected)
cwpuzzle needs some redundancy in the input for the sake of
flexibility. But it seems quite natural to specify the frame of the
puzzle and the clues separately. Especially for those types where no
clues are needed at all.
cwpuzzle currently assumes that words are terminated by a black block
(or the border of the puzzle). crosswrd also supports also the variant
where words are terminated by a thicker border. This might also be
incorporated into a future release of cwpuzzle.
In cwpuzzle it is also possible to specify whether the crossword
puzzle or it's solution should be produced (from the same
source). Thus it is possible to include the puzzle in one issue of a
journal and the solution into another, or to typeset the solution
several pages after the puzzle.
cwpuzzle provides a larger number of options and hooks which can be
used to customize the result. E.g it is possible to modify the size of
the boxes or the fonts used as well as the appearance of graphical
elements like the black blocks.
MORE CELL-BASED PUZZLES
In addition to crossword puzzles Sudoku and Kakuro are supported. They
are also grid-based. Thus it was easy to facilityte the infrastructure
already in place for them.
There is a package for sudoku on CTAN. But it does not support
solutions yet.
LOCATION
cwpuzzle is located in the CTAN directory
tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/gene/crossword
Run tex on cwpuzzle.ins to produce the package and (pdf)latex on
cwpuzzle.dtx to get the documentation (or the Makefile to do both).
Per default the Makefile produces the documentation as PDF.
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