XWord Muggles Forum

The title of this week's contest is I See Right Through You" by Mike Shenk

The answer to this week's contest is something you might hear on Halloween.

Good luck and don't worry about this.

Aaaccck! The hurricane blew the chimney off my house.

20201030 WSJCC - I See Right Through You - Excel REDO


The WSJ Contest Crossword Excel form has been renovated & above is the first time it has been published. The aim was to make it much easier to use.

• All squares within the grid are for letters, only. Clue numbers are imposed & out of the way of entering.

• Since there are no longer rows for numbers, all commenting/notetaking cells to the right of the grids will be easier to use, since they are no longer merged. Copying & pasting, here, will work.

• There will no longer be error messages for trying to make an entry on a protected cell, since protected cells will be skipped.

• While using arrows or TABs, the black squares will be skipped. From the rightmost grid column, hitting TAB 4 times brings the selected cell to the next row's leftmost cell.

• One arrow up or down brings the selected cell to the next entry in that direction. Multiple clicks are no longer needed in the vertical direction.

• The font for the grid has been made larger.

• There are still 15 grids created when filling out the top grid, but they are numbered 1-16, bowing to superstitious convention.

It will take me a few minutes longer to create and post the template for each new puzzle.

Creating & editing Shapes for highlighting and moving & deleting the clues to the right will be slightly more difficult, since the spreadsheet must be unprotected to do so. Care must be taken to not select, move, or edit the clue numbers within the grid when he spreadsheet is unprotected.

The number of usable cells in the entire spreadsheet has been restricted & the width of the puzzle has be made ideal for my computer at 100% viewing size. If you would like a column or two added for your viewing pleasure, please let me know.

All feedback is welcome & appreciated. You may post it here, or send a PM. If you wish to question my lineage or make rather direct personal comments, do so, but via PM, please.

I note my most sincere appreciation for KayW's invaluable and intelligent comments & suggestions. All flaws and questionable design choices are mine, alone.

[ EDIT 1: Added hyperlink for proper place to discuss new Excel form ]

Solved!

Ashore in record time.

Reminder: Across Lite always available as
http://tinyurl.com/mugglespuz

On shore!

On the beach. Nice to see the meta early this time.

On shore - maybe an Oktoberfest for this week?

On shore, much easier than last week, nicely done.

Nice to have a quick easy one after last week's debacle. Might need to have a glass of nice clear Hendrick's in honor of this week's puzzle title.

On shore. Back on track.

Ashore!

Though my meta-puzzling work for the weekend is hardly done. Must psych up for tomorrow's MGWCC Week 5!

On shore, nice to be ashore after spending last weekend at sea.

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Thu Oct 29, 2020 4:11 pm

The WSJ Contest Crossword Excel form has been renovated & above is the first time it has been published. The aim was to make it much easier to use.

I didn't need the spreadsheet this week but I can see how this will be MUCH easier to use. Thanks!!

Floundered past few weeks. Back in the saddle

This should have been posted two weeks ago, but I just ran across it yesterday. Although you can't see it from this picture, my husband is wearing KNEE BREECHES. He built the rifle; I made the uniform.

Onshore in near-record time, thanks in large part to new and improved spreadsheet. Kudos and thanks to Joe Ross!

And another spectre-tacular meta from Mike!

Happy to be on shore.

Grid completed. Gonna be a while before I can actually look at it.

Fast solve... but not only on Halloween!