Shades WordPlay

All your puzzles are accessible from your 'My Puzzles' page, which you can access using the navigation bar at the top when you are logged in.

Be sure to log in using the same email address you used when you created your puzzle.

There is a 'Make Printable' button on the top left of your puzzle that will let you sign up for a plan or purchase a single puzzle.

Once paid, that button will turn into a 'Preview + Publish' button that will put your puzzle in a format that can be printed or solved online.

Once you publish your puzzle, you can click the print icon or use your browser’s print function.

First make sure you’ve published your puzzle. See the 'How do I print?' section above for more information.

99% of other printing issues have to do with printer settings. Instead of trying to fiddle with printer settings, which can be time-consuming and frustrating, there are a couple workarounds you can try.

You can try printing from a different browser, since different browsers have different default print settings. Alternately, you can try saving as a PDF (next to the print icon) and print that.

We invested in building a number of premium features that free sites are unable to offer: the ability to automatically or manually add words to your puzzle, save-as-you-go puzzle editing, the ability to access your puzzles from any computer, an uncluttered and ad-free interface, the ability for friends and colleagues to solve your puzzles online, and quick responsiveness to reported issues.

My Crossword Maker is the lowest-price service we've found that provides these features, and is designed for people who are not satisfied with what free sites are able to provide.

We’re sorry you thought My Crossword Maker was free, that must have been frustrating.

We’re constantly trying to provide a clear and straightforward user experience, and we’re not trying to hide the price: on the page where you make your puzzle, the price is listed in the overview in the top left (before you log in), below the 'Make Printable' button (after you log in), in the FAQ below the grid, and also in the tour.

Unfortunately, we have limited control over how we show up in Google and on other sites, so if they show My Crossword Maker when someone searches for a free site we can’t do anything about that.

First check whether you used a different email address to create your account. Your login email is the email address where you received a welcome email from us.

Alternately, it’s possible there was a typo in your email when you created your account. If so, report an issue below and provide the name and last four digits on the card you used when you signed up. We’ll use this information to track down your account.

If you are a member of My Crossword Maker and are still being asked for payment, then you may have inadvertently created a second account.

Your paid account will have the email address where you received an email confirming your subscription.

If you never received such an email, or are still unable to find your paid account, report an issue below and provide the name and last four digits on the card you used when you signed up. We’ll use this information to track down your account.

For security a human can’t see or reset your password, so read the below information carefully.

If you haven’t gotten the password reset email, check your spam folder, be sure you’re checking the email account that the email was sent to, and be aware that some school email systems block emails from non-school email addresses.

If you have the password reset email but the password isn’t accepted, be sure you are using the most recent password reset email: sometimes people will hit the button twice, and only the second password will work.

Be sure if you copy-paste the password not to get a space on the outside, or if you're typing it keep in mind that it's case-sensitive and that a lower-case L can look like the number 1, etc.

You can cancel your subscription from your 'My Account' page, which you can access using the navigation bar at the top when you are logged in.

Support representatives cannot cancel a subscription on your behalf.

When you hit the 'Arrange' button, our algorithm will try to arrange all your words on the grid, and will move words around to try to fit the most words.

This will get all the words on the grid about 90% of the time, depending on the word list. For the other 10%, you will get an alert explaining that the words that did not fit were added to the scratchpad.

Big puzzles won’t always print on one page — the clues and grid are the smallest we could make them while keeping them readable for everyone.

That said, different browsers print in slightly different ways, so you could try using 'print preview' using a different browser (or try the PDF button) to see if you like how that looks better.

We generally respond to all reported issues in about a day. If it’s been a few days and you haven’t heard back from us, it’s possible we sent an email that didn’t reach you.

Check your spam folder, and be aware that some school email systems block emails from non-school email addresses. Try providing a different email address if you think our emails to you are being blocked.