Why did EclipseCrossword say that I edited my crossword by hand?

Have you seen this message before when trying to open a crossword puzzle?

This crossword file contains invalid data, indicating that it was edited by hand. EclipseCrossword cannot open malformed crosswords.

Here are some reasons that you may be seeing this error.

The file was edited using other software

You could see this error message if you or someone else made changes to this crossword puzzle in other software. If you make changes using a different app, EclipseCrossword may not be able to open the file anymore.

If that’s the case, then you’ll need to either find the mistake that was made when editing the crossword and correct it, or you’ll need to create a new puzzle from the original word list.

The file isn’t a crossword puzzle file

EclipseCrossword can only open its own puzzle and word list files. While it can produce other types of files, such as web pages and WMF and EPS and RTF files, it can’t open those up again for future modification. Those file types are only meant so that you can share your puzzle with others.

If you tried opening one of those other file types by accident, instead try opening the original puzzle file or word list file.

Enhanced Compressed Wavelet files

Unfortunately, both EclipseCrossword and Enhanced Compressed Wavelet (satellite image) files both use the file extension “.ecw”. If you found a .ecw file on the internet and tried to open it with EclipseCrossword, it’s possible that it’s that type, and not a crossword puzzle.