What to do about missing words

Sometimes EclipseCrossword can’t fit all of the words from your word list into the finished puzzle. When you see the preview of your puzzle, if any words from your list weren’t included, there will be a link below the preview like this:

17x17, 26 words 2 words not used

You can select the “words not used” link to see which ones specifically weren’t included, which might give you a clue about how to fix things.

What you can do

There are several different reasons this might happen—here’s what you can do.

• Some of your words might not share any letters with the others. For example, if your word list contained the words CAT, HAT, and DOG, the word DOG can’t fit, because it doesn’t have any of the same letters as CAT or HAT. You would need another word like COD.
• The puzzle might be too small. EclipseCrossword will try to guess a size for your puzzle that’s likely to fit all of your words, but it might guess wrong. From the “finished crossword” step where you see the preview of your puzzle, click Back, and then increase the numbers in the boxes there. When you click Next, EclipseCrossword will generate a new, larger puzzle that’s more likely to fit more of your words.
• Your word list may need more words. You’ll often get the best results if your word list contains a good mix of short and long words. In the CAT, HAT, DOG example earlier, if you added a few more words like COD so that every word in your word list connected to at least one other, you might find that it’s still not possible to fit every word in your grid. If you add a longer word to the list to give them room to “breathe,” the shorter words have more places that they can fit.
• You can try regenerating the puzzle. When you see your puzzle and the “words not used” link, you can select Make another puzzle like this one to have EclipseCrossword build a new one for you. It’ll start over from scratch from the same set of words and clues, and may choose different words the second time around, especially if you have a large word list.
• Your word list may have too many words. EclipseCrossword will let you make a word list with hundreds of words, but that’s too many words for a crossword puzzle. When using a giant word list, expect that not every word will fit.
• Of course, if you’re not too attached to a particular word, you can just say farewell to the words that didn’t get included, and save them for your next puzzle.

Finally, EclipseCrossword won’t try every theoretically-possible crossword layout, or you’d be waiting all day! Sometimes you might see a spot where you’re sure a word could fit but EclipseCrossword still leaves it out, especially when several short words are involved. This happens most often if you carefully craft a word list with a specific, tight, “newspaper-style” layout in mind. EclipseCrossword is designed to let regular people make crosswords quickly and easily; if you want to spend more time and have total control over the layout of your puzzle, you might be better served by a crossword app geared towards professionals.