New CrosSynergy PDF option (and NYT too)

At the Washington Post’s puzzle page, the “Print This Crossword” link now gives you a PDF with the grid at the bottom right (so your solving hand doesn’t cover the clues) and with gray blocks (so your printer uses less toner). I know some of you had concerns about the way the Crossword Solver program printed out puzzles, and hope this option brings you back into the fold of daily CrosSynergy puzzle action.

Here’s what today’s CS PDF looks like:

 

Click Washington Post link for PDF

Interestingly, the New York Times Premium Crosswords page now also offers a daily PDF version of the puzzle. That one looks like the puzzle in the paper (same layout and fonts, etc.), rather than looking like a printout from a crossword-solving application. This move is long overdue—a great many of the Premium Crosswords solvers want to print out a hard copy (me, I prefer solving at the keyboard), and it never made much sense to have to download Across Lite software just to open the puzzle and print it. The PDF option also means no gyrations are needed when an innovative crossword twist doesn’t work in Across Lite—the Times is releasing PDFs daily, whether the puzzle bends the format or not. So no more waiting hours for a special puzzle’s PDF to be posted.

It would appear that Litsoft’s hegemony over printed-out crosswords is drawing to a close, no?

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21 Responses to New CrosSynergy PDF option (and NYT too)

  1. Neville says:

    Thanks for teaching me the word HEGEMONY just now :)

    Glad to see this move by the NYT – it’s nice to not have a twist spoiled by the appearance of a new file, even if I’m solving on the PC. Same goes for CS – having the option to grab a printout and go from a PC other than my own is wonderful.

  2. Alison H says:

    When I was the editor of my community college newspaper, I used the word “hegemony” in an editorial piece on the upcoming election (2004). My faculty advisor advised me not to.

  3. Amy Reynaldo says:

    In related H-vocabulary-word news, I went to college with a guy who, like Will Shortz, designed his own major: hermeneutics. I’m not sure, but I think he’s the guy who went on to run the Brooklyn Brewery and get into the sake-importing business, because really, what else does one do with a hermeneutics degree? Anyway, I definitely hear “hegemony” more than “hermeneutics”!

  4. joon says:

    hermeneutics is a word commonly used in biblical scholarship. i have a permanent mental association between that word and the movie dogma. my mother-in-law, who was in divinity school at the time, saw that movie and kept raving about its hermeneutics. (but don’t get me started on plenary indulgences.)

  5. David says:

    Has anyone been successful lately at getting CS Puzzles downloaded to IPhone?

  6. Amy Reynaldo says:

    @David, I don’t think the mobile apps have yet figured out how to wrangle .jpz files.

  7. cyberdiva says:

    Amy, I tried the pdf version of a NYTimes puzzle a few days ago. It was TERRIBLE! The numbers on the left side were cut off, and the whole arrangement was unpleasant. Thank goodness I can still get the Across Lite download by saying I want to play but then telling the computer to print the puzzle that appears. (As you can tell, unlike you, I not only prefer but INSIST on downloading and printing out the puzzles. Perhaps the fact that what takes you 5 minutes takes me 40 (on a good day) may be part of the reason. :-)

  8. Hugh says:

    Cyberdiva, I’m with you on the enjoyment of printing my puzzles. My only concession to conservation is that I use both sides of each sheet.

  9. Eric LeVasseur says:

    “It would appear that Litsoft’s hegemony over printed-out crosswords is drawing to a close, no?”

    Um, no. The PDF is a big improvement over the limited print options currently offered by Crossword Solver, but as a southpaw whose solving hand DOES cover the clues in the PDF layout, I’m going to have to stick with the JPZ to PUZ converter for now.

  10. rumsoft says:

    Hope you don’t mind the plug … if you have an iPad, then you can download and solve JPZ files with the CRUX Crosswords app – http://goo.gl/m8HTD – iPhone support coming soon!

  11. Amy Reynaldo says:

    Oh, yay! I had just gotten in the habit of using CRUX on the iPad for the CS puzzles and then it didn’t work. I’ll get back to solving CS on the iPad!

  12. Joe Cabrera says:

    cyberdiva: The PDFs are purposefully made to be the size of the entire crossword with no outside margins. Your PDF app should have a print setting to scale the PDF to fit the page which (if set specifically for your printer) should print the PDF to the largest size possible to fit everything.

    And if you don’t see that setting, there should be one in your printing dialog that lets you scale down the PDF’s printing to a more more manageable size like 90%.

  13. Alex says:

    Also, I’m pretty sure Shortyz for Android can handle JPZs.

  14. Amy Reynaldo says:

    I don’t see CrosSynergy/WaPo on the Shortyz list of dailies. The app used to have it listed under the Houston Chronicle, but the Chron doesn’t carry the puzzle anymore.

  15. Jared says:

    Thanks for the tip! This is good news.

  16. NinaUWS says:

    I will try printing it larger, but meanwhile I’ll stick to printing out Across Lite puzzles, as I’ve been doing for several years. I like that the squares are bigger. The process is fast. I could do the puzzle in my dead-trees paper if I wanted this interface. (of course I also like printing them out the night before).

    Update: I can’t get the puzzle to print out larger in PDF. Does anyone have any ideas?

  17. Joe Cabrera says:

    NinaUWS: You’ll need to let us know what operating system you’re on and what application you use for printing your PDFs.

  18. NinaUWS says:

    Joe, I am using Windows Vista Home Premium. The puzzles are defaulting to open up in some version of Adobe. I have a premium version of adobe loaded, actually.

  19. Joe Cabrera says:

    I’m on a Mac so I’m not entirely sure for you, but if you use regular Acrobat Reader there should be a choice for “Fit To Printable Area” or “Shrink To Printable Area”; I’m not sure if Acrobat Premium has this functionality since it’s used more for altering PDFs rather than printing them.

  20. NinaUWS says:

    Joe, that worked. Thanks for your help. Sometimes I fail to try all the obvious program features that I’m not used to using.

    I still like Across Lite better because the lines are not so heavy. The PDF folks should work on that aspect of their design.

  21. Joe Cabrera says:

    The PDF is always going to be exactly what you see in the paper, so unfortunately that’s never going to change.

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