Cookies, they may crumble. If you don�t know what computer cookies are, read this bit.

As this is an Internet-browser based tool, it can only store data in a small file (called a cookie) in the �Temporary Internet Files� folder on your computer. It uses this file to remember the state of your editing when you close the tool and restart it. The files last an indefinite amount of time. Probably longer than a month; not longer than a year and not past a deletion of �Temporary Internet Files� (An option of your browser). If you wish to make permanent records of your crosswords you should use the � Save HTML-ified crossword � option to create a reloadable file.

There is a limit (of 4096 bytes) to the size of a cookie. (One of my 15*15 blocked cryptic crosswords, including its clues, uses 2200 bytes). If your crossword is very large or you are particularly wordy in your clues, you will be notified when automatic storing of crosswords is no longer possible. You can still continue using the ' Save HTML-ified crossword � option, which has no size restriction.

If you save this tool to use it offline you can only have one copy of it in any folder. (They would use the same �Temporary Internet Files�. Not very helpful).

This tool is not a fully featured text editor, but most of your crossword text can be edited. To set the cursor under the mouse pointer you have to click twice (but not a double click). When adding a lot of text into a small area, much of it may disappear while you are typing. Be bold, continue, when you click away from the text, it will re-appear.

It is not possible to force a line break. A long line will be broken for you, but there is no way to break it manually. If you copy a piece of text with line breaks into a text field, the break will be removed. (With the exception of flood filling.)

If you really need bold text in part of a clue, use ' Save HTML-ified crossword � and edit the source in the second place that your clue appears in the file, place this tag <b> before your chosen word, and this tag </b> after it. <i> makes Italics </i>.

I can�t seem to track down a list of the fonts available on various (indeed, any) machines. Try those that �Word� admits to in its font pulldown.

Not all fonts are available on all browsers, so you can specify a list of them and the earliest on the list that is available is used. Even if none of them is available a browser will use a default setting to display the text. It may not look exactly as it does on your browser, but everything will be there in some form or another.

The weight of a font is a way of specifying boldness. �5� is usually a happy medium. �7� may well equate to setting �bold� in a word processor. �1� will be especially skinny.

The line height specifies the spacing between lines of text. The normal value depends on a browser setting (and the font used) and is about 120%. I should leave it as normal for all but the �Grid Numbers� where it can be used to tweak it neatly to the top of its square

A point is 1/72 of an inch. The Grid and text may appear on your screen at more or less than the specified size but it will be correct when printed.

(Incidentally, I started using mm but had problems with rounding errors. It seems computers are resolutely non-metric)

Widths of lines never become less than one pixel on the screen, but are printed correctly on the page (for a certain value of �correctly�). Because of this, text may appear to be closer to a grid line than it will be when it is printed.

The text of the clues allows itself the whole width of the window to spread out. When it is printed it will resize itself to fit the new page. If you re-size your browser to the width of the blue banner, at the top of the page, (or a little less to allow for margins) you will get a better impression of which clues break onto a second or more lines. If your grid is wider than the printed page width, the right edge may well go missing.

This tool has certain different features in different browsers. Internet Explorer has two �Select File Name�� buttons, for saving and loading HTML-ified crosswords. Other browsers have a metamorphose button rather than a save button. You can then save the crossword using the browser�s Saveas button. In both cases be careful to use the specified save options. Netscape Navigator has no short cuts, you need to go the long way round to save and reload the �source� of HTML-ified crosswords.

Also, Some browsers may not save a cookie automatically if you quit the browser (they may save one if you load a different page or refresh the current page). So remember the �Save a cookie now� button

To output a web page, click the �Display Web-Page source� checkbox. This will reveal two additional boxes. The first contains the text for a complete web page. To use it:-

Click in the box // This points the editor to the right place

Press CTRL-a // This selects all the data (It may highlight in grey)

Press CTRL-c // This copies all the data

Open a new file in the Notepad application//

Press CTRL-v // This pastes all the data

//e.g. "myCrossword.html" (including the quotes)

The file produced can be viewed by clicking on it. It will open in a new browser window.

The second, smaller, box contains a small-ish lump of text. This contains just enough information to describe your crossword but not to display it. You can save it in a .txt file, using a manner similar to that described above, or post it in an E-mail. It can be pasted into the 'Reload XwordHTML text' box.

Both of these lumps of text can be re-loaded into the tool using the following method.

If it is a.html file: -

In both cases:-

Select the text, perhaps using CTRL-a

(If you are using a Mac, much of that will be wrong, but you will be able to work it out

It was only my intention to present my own crossword grids, in HTML, in a tidy fashion. But then it seemed that a tool to create the grids would be useful. And also a way to input the grids. And it would be handy if it displayed the clues as well. And after that, I �spect it just grow�d.

(Try not to look too closely at it. At the start I knew little of HTML, nothing of Javascript and lacked a clear objective; it is far from well written)

Tested on Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6.0, Firefox 2.0, Mozilla 1.7 and Netscape Navigator 7.

This is all a bit open ended at the moment, get in touch, see what you can come up with.

1. Allowing control of boldness, italics etc on smaller pieces of text than is currently allowed.

2. More control of numbering and clue lists for specials.

3. Different layouts. E.g. allowing clues beside the grid, clues split into multi columns.

4. A cleaner text editing method.

5. Bitmap output? (See �Universal Document Converter�)

6. Control of line/bar thicknesses

7.