How to use the cryptogram maker
- Type or paste a quote or message into the box. Use the letters A to Z. Spaces, digits and punctuation stay as they are.
- Choose how many hint letters to reveal. The hints are letters of the quote that are already filled in. The puzzle code decides which scramble you get.
- Press Make puzzle, or just keep typing, and the puzzle appears with each scrambled letter above a blank. Press New code for a different scramble of the same quote.
- Use Show answer to check your work, Copy puzzle to paste it elsewhere, or Print for a paper copy. Share the puzzle code with a friend to give them the same puzzle.
Making a puzzle from "BE KIND"
Take the message BE KIND with the puzzle code 42 and no hints. The tool draws a scrambled alphabet in which A becomes M, B becomes L, C becomes Q and so on. B becomes L and E becomes Z, so BE becomes LZ. K, I, N and D become U, K, H and G, so KIND becomes UKHG. The puzzle reads LZ UKHG, and both words keep their shape: a two letter word followed by a four letter word.
The pattern of repeated letters survives the scramble, which is what makes a cryptogram solvable. If the same plain letter appears twice, it is the same scrambled letter both times. No plain letter ever turns into itself, so a scrambled E is never E. With hint letters, a few letters are written in the blanks already, which makes a long quote easier to start.
How a cryptogram works
A cryptogram is a substitution cipher: each letter of the alphabet stands for exactly one other letter. The solver looks at patterns, such as one letter words, short words, double letters and common endings, to guess letters, and each guess fills in every place that letter appears. Longer quotes are easier because they give more patterns to use.
This tool builds the scramble from a random rearrangement of the alphabet with the rule that no letter stands for itself. It is made with a seeded generator, so the same quote and code always give the same puzzle. That is how a puzzle code lets two people work on the same puzzle.
Making good puzzles
Choose quotes of 40 to 150 letters for a balanced challenge. Very short messages have too few clues, and very long ones take time. Add one or two hint letters to help a beginner, or none for an experienced solver. Keep a copy of the answer for yourself, because the code and the quote are all that is needed to rebuild the puzzle.
This is for puzzles and teaching, not for keeping secrets: a simple substitution is easy to break and gives no real protection. For simple shift ciphers see the Caesar cipher tool, for a keyword cipher try the Vigenere cipher tool, and for other puzzles make a word search or a sudoku. Your quote is never uploaded.
Assumptions and limits
- Only the letters A to Z are scrambled. Quotes with other letters, such as accented ones, are refused with a message.
- The quote needs at least 6 letters, 3 different letters and no more than 300 characters.
- A puzzle code from 1 to 999999999 always makes the same scramble for the same quote and hint count.
- Hint letters are chosen from the letters in the quote and never reveal all of them.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a cryptogram?
Type a quote, choose the number of hints and press Make puzzle. Each letter is replaced by another letter, the same way every time it appears.
What is the puzzle code for?
It fixes the scramble. Using the same quote and the same code gives the same puzzle, so you can share it or rebuild the answer later.
Why does no letter stand for itself?
A letter that maps to itself gives away part of the puzzle and makes the scramble look less random, so the tool avoids it.
Can I print the puzzle?
Yes. The Print button prints the puzzle with a blank under each letter. Show answer only appears if you reveal it first.