Skip to main content

Magic Fill

Objective
  • Learn about the Magic Fill AI based puzzle creation tool

Achieving a highly interlocked crossword grid is challenging with a small set of words—especially in American-style grids, where each letter typically must be part of both an Across and a Down word. These tight constraints can limit placement options, sometimes resulting in a layout that resembles Scrabble more than a traditional crossword.

To address these challenges and help you create well-connected, high-quality, and dense grids, PuzzleMe offers the Magic Fill tool. This AI-powered feature quickly generates crossword puzzles with dense, highly interlocked layouts, making it useful for both experienced constructors and beginners—especially for smaller puzzles. You can start with a blank grid or one with pre-filled letters and black boxes, and then guide the process by selecting from built-in dictionaries or uploading your own custom word lists.

What sets Magic Fill apart is its flexibility beyond standard crossword construction tools. You can specify important words to be included in the grid, even if you don’t know exactly where you want them to go. Similarly, you can set limits on the number of black boxes, letting the tool optimize their placement for you. This gives you control over puzzle difficulty and grid density, encouraging more interconnected words and a smoother solving experience.

Magic Fill also gives you advanced control over your grid generation. For black box placement, you have two options: you can manually enter floating black boxes exactly where you want them, or you can set minimum and maximum limits, allowing Magic Fill to place black boxes randomly within the grid. This flexibility lets you experiment with both precise and dynamic grid designs. You can also mark certain entries as “Must Have Words,” ensuring that your most important words are always included in the generated grid, even if you don’t know exactly where they’ll fit.

Additionally, Magic Fill is the first program to support crossword construction in Indic scripts and barred grids, where cell bars indicate word boundaries. Barred grids are valuable for clearly separating words within the grid using visual bars instead of relying solely on black boxes. This can be particularly useful for languages or puzzle styles where word separation needs to be very distinct, and also offers a different aesthetic and solving experience compared to traditional black box grids.

Using Magic Fill​

  1. Start by creating a new crossword puzzle or editing an existing one.

  2. Navigate to the grid editing area. You can begin with:

    • An empty grid.
    • A grid where you have already placed some starting letters.
    • A grid with some black boxes already positioned.

    To add a black box manually, type a period (.) directly in your desired cell.

  3. Locate the Magic Fill panel, usually on the right side of the screen.

  4. Click Create game. You'll be taken to the Magic Fill configuration panel within the crossword editor.

Configuring Magic Fill​

Once you click the "Create Game" button, the Magic Fill configuration interface appears, allowing you to set the parameters for your grid generation:

  • Dictionaries: Select the dictionaries that Magic Fill should draw words from. You can use PuzzleMe's built-in dictionaries, or add your own personal dictionaries.
  • Minimum floating black boxes: The minimum number of isolated black squares allowed in the grid.
  • Maximum floating black boxes: The maximum number of isolated black squares allowed.
  • Minimum word length: The shortest word length allowed in the grid.
  • Must have words: These are the words that Magic Fill must include in the generated grid. Separate multiple words with commas.
  • Start: Click this button to begin the grid generation process.
Adding black boxes

To add a black box manually while using Magic Fill, type a period (.) in the desired cell while editing the grid.

Generating and selecting a grid​

Magic Fill will present you with several grid options. Review these options:

  • Visual grid: See the layout of the potential crossword.
  • Metadata: View details like the number of black boxes, word count, and average word length.

If none of the initial grids meet your needs, you can click the Generate more button within the Magic Fill panel to get additional options.

Once you find a grid you like, click the Use this grid button.

Word scoring​

Magic Fill uses dictionaries to select words for your crossword grid. These dictionaries can be:

  • Built-in dictionaries: PuzzleMe provides curated dictionaries from various sources. The available built-in dictionaries are in English only. Magic Fill is designed to work well for all languages (including languages with complex scripts), but you will need to upload your own dictionary for other languages.
  • Custom dictionaries: In addition to the built-in dictionaries, you can upload your own dictionaries for Magic Fill to use.

Each word in these dictionaries has a score.

  • Curated scores: Some built-in dictionaries include scores assigned by the dictionary curator, reflecting word frequency or suitability for crosswords.
  • Default score: If a word does not have a curator-assigned score, it is given a default score of 50.
  • Combined scores: If a word appears in multiple selected dictionaries, its total score is the sum of its scores from each dictionary.

Word scores influence Magic Fill's grid generation, with higher-scoring words generally being preferred.

Score cutoffs​

Score cutoffs are used to filter word lists and remove less desirable words before Magic Fill starts generating grids. This helps to refine the puzzle creation process and focus on higher-quality word options.

  • Score cutoffs allow you to set a minimum score threshold. Words with scores below this threshold will not be considered by Magic Fill.
  • Using score cutoffs can improve Magic Fill's efficiency by reducing the number of words it needs to process.
  • While you can also filter words after grid generation using the filter panel, using score cutoffs is a more efficient way to pre-filter words.
note

You cannot export your files as PUZ or XML/JPZ format.

Browsing grids​

After Magic Fill generates potential crossword grids, you can browse through them and select the best option.

Sorting grids​

Grids are initially sorted by the minimum word score. This means grids where the lowest-scoring word has a higher score will be displayed first.

  • This sorting prioritizes grids with generally higher quality words, as the lowest-scoring word often indicates the overall quality of a grid.
  • If multiple grids have the same minimum word score, they are then sorted by the total grid score, which is the sum of scores of all words in the grid.

Filtering grids​

Several filters are available to help you narrow down the grid options:

  • Words in: Filter grids to only show those that include specific words.
  • Words out: Filter grids to exclude those that contain certain words.
  • Black boxes: Filter grids based on the number of black boxes they contain. You can specify a range or a maximum number of black boxes.
  • Grid score: Filter grids based on their total grid score. You can set a minimum score to only see grids that meet a certain quality level.
  • Word score: Filter grids based on the minimum word score. This allows you to focus on grids where even the "worst" word meets a certain score threshold.
  • Pinned solutions: You can "pin" grids you like by clicking the star icon next to them. Use the star filter to view only your pinned grids. This is helpful for bookmarking and comparing promising grids.

Exporting a puzzle​

To export clues and answers from a PuzzleMe puzzle, including those created with Magic Fill:

  1. Go to your Dashboard.
  2. Find the puzzle you want to export and click the Analytics icon next to it.
  3. On the analytics page, locate and click the Download Puzzle as CSV button.
  4. A CSV file containing the puzzle's grid, answers, and clues will be downloaded to your computer.
note

PuzzleMe does not currently support exporting puzzles in PUZ or XML/JPZ formats.

Indic puzzle creation​

PuzzleMe's Magic Fill is designed to support puzzle creation in multiple languages, including Indic languages.

  • Built-in dictionaries are language-specific. Ensure you set the correct language for your puzzle to access relevant dictionaries.
  • Magic Fill can handle Indic scripts where multiple letters combine to form a single grapheme that fits into one grid box.
  • You can upload custom dictionaries for Indic languages to further enhance puzzle generation in these scripts.

Using clue databases​

PuzzleMe provides access to a clue database, powered by Matt Ginsburg's database, to assist with clue creation. Matt Ginsburg is a renowned crossword puzzle constructor and programmer, and his clue database is a valuable resource containing a vast collection of crossword clues. This database can provide inspiration and ensure the quality and relevance of your clues.

  1. After generating a grid with Magic Fill, click the Edit clues option.
  2. In the clue editing interface, you can:
    • Edit existing clues.
    • View previously used clues for a given word from the clue database for inspiration.
    • PuzzleMe allows you to enhance clues by adding media links (pictures, videos, or audio) to make them more engaging.
Clue Suggestions and AI Assistance

If your filled grid contains generic words that don’t directly match your theme, PuzzleMe provides helpful tools to enhance your clues. On the puzzle editor page, under Edit clues → Get suggestions, you can access a library of theme-related clues—even for common words. Additionally, you can use PuzzleMe AI to generate entirely new clues tailored to your theme. For best results, review AI-generated clue suggestions before accepting them, to ensure they fit your puzzle’s style and audience.

Advanced tips for Magic Fill​

  • Mini puzzles: Magic Fill is most effective for creating smaller puzzles (5x5 or 7x7 grids).
  • Larger themed puzzles (15x15): For larger, themed puzzles:
    • Manually place your themed entries directly into the grid.
    • Position most of the black boxes related to your theme.
    • Use Magic Fill with "floating" black boxes to optimize the placement of remaining black boxes and fill the grid around your theme entries. This allows Magic Fill to fine-tune the grid fill and black box arrangement while ensuring your thematic content is prioritized.

Magic Fill is continuously being improved to make it even more powerful and capable of producing larger and more complex grids.

Best Practices for Magic Fill
  • Ensure your wordlist has overlapping letters to help create intersections.
  • Try different grid styles—Freeform, British, or American—to see which works best for your wordlist and theme.
  • Type in black boxes using the period (.) and play around with the minimum and maximum floating box settings to control grid density.
  • Lower the minimum word length if your list includes short words.
  • Use a longer wordlist if you want more fill options and denser grids.

Troubleshooting​

If you encounter issues with Magic Fill, try these solutions:

  • Grid won’t fill: Increase your wordlist size, lower the minimum word length, allow more black squares, relax constraints, try a larger grid, or experiment with different dictionaries.
  • Must Have Words aren’t included: Double-check for typos, try related words, or relax other constraints.
  • Grid is too sparse or lacks density: Review your dictionaries, try a different grid style, or increase the wordlist size and adjust black square limits.
  • Theme entries not fitting: Manually place your theme entries and use Magic Fill to optimize the rest of the grid.

Table of contents