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			     cwpuzzle.sty
				  -
	  a LaTeX package for typesetting crossword puzzles

			   Gerd Neugebauer


Since I know  only of one additional package  for this purpose 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.


cwpuzzle is located in the CTAN directory

	tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/gene/crossword

run  tex    on cwpuzzle.ins  to  produce the    package   and latex on
cwpuzzle.dtx to get the documentation (or the Makefile to do both).