pycrossword
User Guide
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3.7.1. Editing words

 
Crossword words are edited manually right in the crossword grid.
 

Grid navigation

 
To edit a word, you must select it by clicking with the mouse or navigating with the keyboard. When a word is selected in the grid, you will see it highlighted, and the selected (active) cell will have a different highlighting to show you where you are:
 
Fig. 3.7.1.1. Selected word and active cell in the grid
 
When the grid is under focus, you can navigate to a word using the arrow keys on your keyboard (Left, Right, Up, Down) or using the left button of your mouse.
 
If the active cell (highlighted bright yellow in the above picture) is at the crossing of two words (one going across and the other down), you can switch between these words by pressing the Space key or clicking on that cell with the left mouse button. The crossing words will be thus selected in turn.
 
To clear the current selection (word and active cell), click outside of the grid (on the surrounding grey field).
 
Note that no words are activated in the grid Edit mode where only the active cell(s) are tracked.
 

Multiselect mode

 
The grid can be switched into the Multiselect mode by choosing the Edit > Multiselect menu (or pressing the F6 key).
 
The Multiselect mode lets you select / activate multiple (more than just one) cells at a time and edit them simultaneously (for example, hitting Delete to clear the selected cells, or any A-Z key to type in a character).
 
Multiple cells can be selected by clicking on them with the Ctrl and/or Shift keys held down or by dragging the cursor across the cells with the left button pressed, in the same way that you would select spreadsheet / table cells. Holding down Shift or dragging the cursor lets you select rectangular regions. Holding down Ctrl and clicking lets you select individual (even not adjacent) cells.
 
Note that when in the Multiselect mode there is no active word in the crossword, since selecting different cells would activate different words to which they belong. You may look at this option as a convenience to edit your crossword in a 'batch' mode.
 
Note that this option works only in the Edit mode!
 

Changing letters

 
To change the letters in the selected word, just type characters with your keyboard. The letter in the active cell (or all the selected cells in the Multiselect mode) with be replaced and the grid will advance to the next letter in the selected word.
 
Of course, only alphabetical characters are accepted. If you try typing other characters (e.g. numbers or punctuation marks), nothing will happen. The case in which you  type doesn't matter, since the application stores all words internally in lower-case and the case of the words in the grid can be configured with Settings > User interface > Grid > Character case.
 
Since pycrossword is fully Unicode-enabled, characters from any alphabet are accepted. The figure below shows a crossword with Russian words (Cyrillic characters).
 
Fig. 3.7.1.2. Example crossword with non-Latin (Cyrillic) characters
 

Deleting letters

 
To delete a single letter in the active cell (or all the selected cells in the Multiselect mode), hit the Delete or Backspace key. In the former case (Delete pressed), the active cell will advance to the next one in the selected word; and in the latter case (Backspace pressed), the active cell will move to the previous letter in the selected word. Advancing does not take place in the Multiselect mode.
 
You can configure the appearance of empty (blank) cells in Settings > User interface > Grid > Blank cell color / style.
 

Deleting words

 
There are three ways to delete a word in pycrossword:
 
 
The effect of the first and second ways is identical: the selected word is erased entirely, and all its letters become blank. If some letters are crossing other words, such words will also contain blanks at the crossings:
 
Fig. 3.7.1.3. Erasing a word (No. 4 Across) also invalidates three crossing words (No. 1, 2 and 3 Down)
 
The third way ("clearing" as opposed to "erasing") can be dubbed "smart" deletion. It deletes those letters that appear in the selected word only and not in any crossing ones. The picture below visualizes this difference:
 
Fig. 3.7.1.4. "Smart" clearing word No. 4 Across leaves the intersecting words intact
 

Clearing the entire grid

 
Of course, you can clear the entire crossword making all the words in it blank. To do this, select Edit > Clear in the main menu, or press the button in the Toolbar, or use the Ctrl + D combination.
 
Remember that word deletion using methods 2 and 3 described above does not work in the Edit mode, since no words are activated when the Edit mode is toggled on.
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