eao@shape.mps.ohio-state.edu (Ed Overman) (10/04/90)
This time I don't need help - I could just use some suggestions.
My 8 year old has a little trouble with spelling (that is, he doesn't get
it immediately like his older sister does). Since it gets boring just having
him spell words over and over again he and I are working together to generate
a crossword puzzle each week of his spelling words that he can practice on.
Additionally he has to give me the clues so he learns the meanings of the
words - and we usually think up a few "funny" clues.
I use TeX to generate the outline of the puzzle and I quickly decided
that I didn't want to black out the blank squares because it looked horrible
and it wasted a lot of toner. Now I usually just make the blank squares
invisible. However there are always a few very small regions that don't
look good if they are made invisible. In those regions I put special
characters such as: the dangerous symbol from the TeXbook or a wagon wheel
(o, x, and +) or a couple of horizontal or vertical lines. Are there fonts
with "fun" characters that would brighten up a puzzle? (For example, the
hershey character set, which I use for graphics, has such characters as: a
palm true, a star, a Star of David, a ship, the outline of the interstate
highway signs, etc.) If I get a bunch of suggestions I will post the
replies. Thanks