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Crossword puzzle fans who know some Yiddish can now do Yiddish puzzles directly on their computer screens and immediately check if their answers are correct as they work on the puzzle, thanks to a new Yiddish crossword platform available on the Forverts website.
The digital Yiddish crossword feature was created by Crauswords.com’s software developer John Stevens, who adapted the webapp feature of his popular crossword program crauswords.com to meet the needs of Yiddish crossword-solvers with the help of crossword creator Meena-Lifshe Viswanath.
Although the Forverts launched a Yiddish crossword feature last year, it could not be filled out online, so users needed to print it out and complete it with a pen or pencil. There was also no way for users to immediately check if an answer they wrote was the correct one.
The new Forverts crossword site can be accessed on any iPad, laptop or desktop computer. It is not available on mobile phones, however.
The site provides a variety of options. It can reveal the correct letter or word for a particular clue or simply point out which letters are incorrectly filled out in the puzzle. It can also reveal the solution to the entire puzzle or delete all the answers, in case the user wants to start afresh.
The digital crossword feature also contains all the puzzles released by the Forverts to date, so that the user can immediately start solving a second puzzle upon finishing their first.
The tablet mode includes a built-in Yiddish keyboard so that players can solve the puzzles even if they don’t have a Yiddish keyboard installed.
For users who still prefer to fill out the crossword with pen and paper, the site also provides a PDF version of each puzzle which users can print out.