word-search puzzle printing companies?

Started by hotmetal, March 21, 2019, 03:19:55 PM

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hotmetal

My firm belief is that All Knowledge Resides in b4print, so here's my dilemma:

My best client had me attempting to make some word-search puzzle books a few months ago. They sent me some puzzles they'd made with a shareware software. The typesetting from the software was horrible, no options for point size, leading, font. All columns flush left, different spacing between columns in every file. Etc etc. It took me 20+ minutes to format each one so they looked nice, and had the same column-widths. The books they want me to do have 200 puzzles each.

Luckily (for me) they didn't like my cover designs,  so I politely told them I didn't know enough (if anything) about creating the type for world puzzle books, and that they should find a person or company with experience in these things.

Well... they just tried to drop it in my lap again. I found them a printer in India that claims this is their specialty. Anyone know of any U.S. printers who do large volumes of crossword and word-search puzzle books? I've put an hour into googling this for and didn't find any, other than the one in India.


 :facepalm:
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." ...
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Joe

That is one thing we don't do here.

And Hi hotmetal! :hello:
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Kermy812

I don't know if it helps, but someone has wrote a javascript for indd to build a crossword puzzle here: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/329368
There's a download all the way at the end of the thread. I tried & it "Works", but they didn't put any notations in the script, so customizing & editing might be a ton of "fun".

hotmetal

Quote from: Kermy812 on March 22, 2019, 09:08:39 AMI don't know if it helps, but someone has wrote a javascript for indd to build a crossword puzzle here: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/329368
There's a download all the way at the end of the thread. I tried & it "Works", but they didn't put any notations in the script, so customizing & editing might be a ton of "fun".

Great, thanks! I'll go look into that thread.

Wait, that's for crosswords. These are those word search puzzles where you circle the answers hidden in the block of seemingly random letters. The shareware software I used a couple months ago would generate the block of letters from the list of answers.

I don't normally turn down freelance work, but there's 3 or 4 of these books, with 200 puzzles each. That is mind-numbing work, and I've got a steady stream of nice, colorful, fun childrens' books from another client that I'd much rather spend my time designing.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." ...
Hunter S. Thompson

Slappy

It honestly might be worth finding a really good InDesign Script writer. Assuming the attached screenshot is what you're after, I can almost sort of see doing it with some basic InDesign Data Merge, but you'd still have to:

– Manually place the "good words" in the search grid first then
– Have all of the "filler blocks" be populated with a single character from say an Excel file, randomly generated by maybe a Formula in Excel, or from a site then imported into the Excel sheet

The most tedious part would be getting Step 1 done, and if there's a few hundred to do I'm nit sure it's possible to get it done by hand and be profitable.
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Diddler

Been thinking this one over for a few days. I would approach it with a GREP Script in Indesign if you need boxes to be black like a traditional crossword. Excel / Data Merge would contain your words and a number to give them a certain colour.
I might have time later this week to have a play and help you out.

Can you upload a screenshot of what your imagining it to look like?
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