You can also read the FAQ:

Feel free to send questions / comments / feature requests / accolades to eliza.block@gmail.com.

Downloading

Where do I enter my New York Times Premium subscription username and password?

1. ➡Enter your subscription information in the application’s Settings screen, which you can get to by pressing the “gear” button in the lower-left corner of the Saved Puzzles screen.
   

The puzzles are too hard! Can you please add some sources of easier puzzles?

1. ➡I’m working on it. In the next update there are four new sources, and in the one after that there will be a whole lot more. I’m also working on getting some sources of children’s puzzles, although these turn out to be hard to download these in a machine-readable form.
   

Which of the current puzzles are the easiest?

1. ➡Puzzles vary in difficulty even within a given source, but some of the Thinks.com puzzles are on the easier side. Also, if you have a New York Times Premium subscription, puzzles from the beginning of the week (Monday and Tuesday) are easy-ish, whereas ones from the end of the week are very challenging.
   

There’s this one newspaper/website whose puzzles I especially enjoy. Can you add it as a source?

1. ➡Very possibly! Send me an e-mail with the name of the source, and I’ll do my best to find a way to download puzzles from there in a readable form.
   

Any plans to add puzzles in other languages?

1. ➡I would very much like to accumulate non-English language sources for crosswords. So far I’ve had limited success in finding foreign-language websites that offer downloadable puzzles. (This may be partly due to my inability to understand the websites.) If you want puzzles in a particular language and know of sources for good puzzles, please let me know.
   

I already have some puzzles on my computer. Can I import them into 2 Across?

1. ➡Unfortunately, Apple provides no direct way of transferring files into the directory of a third-party application. So the only way to get puzzles into the app is to download them.
   

Solving

How do I bring up the keyboard?

1. ➡Double-tap anywhere in the grid.
   

How do I switch directions in the grid?

1. ➡Tap again in the “active” (dark gray) square.
   

I somehow managed to type more than one letter into a square. What’s going on?

1. ➡You must have triggered “multiple-letter mode” by double-tapping in a square when the keyboard was up. You can tell you’re in this mode because the active square is highlighted in white. You can get out of this mode by double-tapping again, or by tapping anywhere else, or by pressing the space bar.
   

Why on earth would I ever want to type more than one letter into a single grid square?

1. ➡Some tricky puzzles have solutions that require this. See, for example, the New York Times puzzle from this past Sunday, July 27.
   

I keep accidentally triggering multiple-letter mode, and it’s annoying. Is there a way to disable it?

1. ➡Not at the moment. But in version 1.1, which is waiting on Apple’s approval, you can disable multiple-letter mode in the application’s Settings screen. (You can always turn it back on again if you’re solving a puzzle that needs it.)
   

I’m solving a puzzle that requires entering more than one letter into a single square. Is there any way to do this?

1. ➡Yes! When the keyboard is up, double-tap in the square. It will get a white border. Now all subsequent letters you type will go into this square. Press the space bar or tap elsewhere to return to “normal” mode.
   

When I try to check my answers I get an alert saying the puzzle’s solutions are encrypted. Why?

1. ➡New York Times puzzles have encrypted solutions the day they are published. So if you download today’s puzzle, you won’t be able to check it.
   

I downloaded this puzzle yesterday, and its solutions are still encrypted. How do I decrypt it?

1. ➡In version 1.0, you can’t. But in version 1.1, which will be available as soon as Apple gets around to approving it, you can decrypt encrypted puzzles by pressing the “check” button. So hang onto your encrypted puzzles; you’ll be able to check your answers soon.