Design Your Crossword

Create a Crossword in Captivate

Design Your Crossword

1. 
   Come up with your words and clues
   
2. 
   Use a crossword creator to mock up your crossword
   

Start Building Your Crossword

3. 
   Open a new Captivate project
   
4. 
   Create a square (hold down shift when you resize it to make it a perfect square)
   
5. 
   Choose color/stroke for blank square
   
6. 
   Select the square, and check both “Retain State on Slide Revisit” and “Use as Button”)
   
7. 
   Add state:
   
   1. 
      Completed state – this is the letter that will appear
      
8. 
   Duplicate and arrange squares to make up your crossword
   
9. 
   Edit each Completed state with corresponding letter
   
10. 
    Name each square according to Word and Letter (e.g. Saguaro B).
    
    1. 
       This will help with creating Advanced Actions
       
11. 
    Add clue numbers
    
12. 
    Add clue text
    

Add Text Input for Each Clue/Answer

1. 
   Add a new blank slide, name after corresponding clue
   
2. 
   Insert text caption with clue
   
3. 
   Insert text entry box and select it
   
   1. 
      In Properties pane:
      
      1. 
         Change variable for text entry box to something like guess_saguaro
         
      2. 
         Check “Validate User Input” and set valid input to correct guess
         
      3. 
         Select actions, and set On Success action to jump back to Crossword, leave set to infinite attempts
         
4. 
   Insert “back” button to return user to Crossword
   

Add Success Scripts to Crossword

1. 
   Create a single conditional advanced action that changes state of each box to Completed
   
   1. 
      Condition is tied to text entry variable: if the text entry is correct, action will run
      
   2. 
      Create only ONE action!! Use the tabs to combine all actions into single action.
      
   3. 
      IF text_entry_variable = literal, change each box to Completed for that clue
      
   4. 
      Add an additional tab that shows a “crossword complete” message if desired (if all variables are correct, show a message)
      
2. 
   Set to run when Crossword slide loads (on entry)
   

Set Each Letter Box’s Button Action

3. 
   Program each letter box to jump to corresponding clue text input slide
   

Arizona Crossword

saguaro Majestic cactus native to the Sonoran desert
bark The ____ scorpion is Arizona's most common as well as North America's most venomous
gila The ____ monster, a Sonoran native, is the only venomous lizard in the United States
haboob Borrowed from Arabic, this term refers to the massive dust storms that occur in summer

Creative Commons License CC-BY 4.0 – by Lindsay O’Neill, lindsay-oneill.com