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CipherDesk

Newspaper cryptograms · desk edition

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Tap a cipher letter, then tap a letter on the keyboard — your guess fills in everywhere that letter appears. Help

Solved! Well done.

CipherDesk — fill in the blanks. Each letter stands for another letter (never itself).

Help

Two short guides — how to use CipherDesk, and how to read the board.

How to use CipherDesk

  1. 1Tap a category tab. Choose All, Saved, or a subject — Wisdom, Science, Leadership, Wit, History, Sports or Comedy. Every tap deals a new puzzle for that category, even tapping the one already selected. A quote is dealt and encoded with a fresh cipher — dealt from the reviewed quotes snapshot (quotes.json, with a copy built into the page), and from the 60 built-ins when the snapshot can’t be reached.
  2. 2Fill in the blanks. Tap a cipher letter, then tap a letter on the keyboard — or type it. Your guess fills in everywhere that letter appears.
  3. 3Hint, Check, Undo, Reset. Hint reveals one letter — the most frequent one you haven’t got right yet. Check marks wrong guesses in red. Undo takes back the last guess; Reset clears them all.
  4. 4Create & Scramble. Use Create to load a cryptogram of your own, or type a solution and Scramble turns it into a cipher. Created puzzles live in the Saved tab.
  5. 5Link library file. This connects your Saved puzzles to a file on your device, so they live outside this browser too. Tap the button and pick saved-puzzles.json — the app points you to ~/Downloads/CipherDesk/saved-puzzles.json. CipherDesk loads the puzzles in that file into Saved, then keeps the file updated in place whenever your Saved puzzles change, and reconnects to the same file on your next visit (your browser may ask you to allow it again). The file it expects is plain JSON: a “puzzles” list, each entry holding the ciphertext and, when known, its solution and author. If you pick a new, empty file, your current Saved puzzles are written into it. On a browser that can’t link a file, Download copy is offered instead — it saves a one-time copy of saved-puzzles.json with the same contents.
  6. 6Timer and print. The timer starts with your first guess and stops when you solve. The printer button prints just the puzzle, ready to solve on paper.

How to read the board and solve a cryptogram

Example cell

Your guess (E) on top, the cipher letter (H) under it, and how often it appears in this puzzle (4) at the bottom.

Never itselfThe same cipher letter always stands for the same real letter — and never itself. One whole guess is ruled out before you start.
Spaces & punctuationWord breaks and punctuation stay where they are — one-letter words and apostrophes are clues, not decoration.
Substitution mapThe map below the keyboard holds every pairing; Hints given underneath lists each letter Hint revealed.
Hint & CheckHint reveals a single letter and logs it under Hints given. Check marks only your wrong letters, in red, so you can fix them and keep solving.
Start with the busy lettersThe frequent ones are usually E, T, A — the tiny number under each cipher letter tells you how often it appears.
SolvedWhen every letter matches, the author is revealed, “Solved! Well done.” appears, and the timer stops.