The grid menu is concerned with settings that affect the grid window
Grid Type leads to a sub menu that lets you choose between crossword or wordsquare puzzle mode.
Size... opens a window that lets you change the size of the grid.
Select the width and height you want and then click on OK.
Reflect leads to a sub menu (shown below) that allows you to copy the filled squares or bars in one area of the grid into another. The idea is that crossword puzzles often have a symmetry and so copying the filled squares from one area to another can be quicker than filling them all in by hand.
Upper Case forces all the text in the grid to be in capital letters. This menu item will show a tick when it is selected.
Lower Case forces all the text in the grid to be in small letters. This menu item will show a tick when it is selected.
Note that only one of Lower and Upper case can be selected at once. It is possible for neither to be selected, in which case the text in the grid can be in mixed case.
Customise opens a window which allows you to fine tune many aspects of how grids are displayed. All the information in this window is saved in CrossStar .crx files. So if you change the grid background colour to green and save the grid the next time that grid file is loaded it will still have a green background. Other grids you load may have different background colours. If you always want some set of grid settings when you start CrossStar or create a new grid, set them up and then use the Save As Default option from the File menu.
This is the Customisation window in crossword puzzle mode. The wordsquare version is described later.
Grid colour is the colour of the lines which delimit the cells in the grid. If you click on the coloured square to the right of the text 'Grid colour' the standard Windows colour picker window will open to let you change the colour.
Text colour is the colour of the text in the grid.
Filled square colour is the colour of filled in cells in the grid.
Grid background colour is the colour used as a background for the grid.
Grid text font this is the font used for displaying text in the grid, both on screen and in graphics files. By clicking on the white area with the sample text (ABCabc123) you can open the standard Windows font picker and choose the font you desire and its size.
Clue number font lets you set the font used for displaying clue numbers in graphics files.
Grid square size allows the size of the cells in the grid to be set. The number here is a percentage of the grid text font size. So if you have a text font size of 12 points and set the square size to 100% the grid will have cells 12 points square. Usually it will be a good idea to set the grid square size larger than 100%. 180% as show in the picture above is a good starting value.
When you've finished clicking on OK will close the customisation window and apply the values chosen to the current grid.
In wordsquare mode the customisation window is slightly different.
In addition to the settings at the top of the window which are similar to those for crossword puzzles there are some extra ones.
Min word length this sets the minimum length of solutions to the wordsquare. It is relevant when you use CrossStar to solve a wordsquare.
Show solutions controls if solutions will be shown when the wordsquare is saved as a graphics file. In graphics files solutions are shown with a line drawn through them. Solutions will only be shown if they are present in the Solutions window.
The fill direction options control the direction in which words will be inserted into a wordsquare. These settings are important when you've given CrossStar a list of words and tell it to make a puzzle out of them. The ones shown above are the sensible ones (at least in languages which read left right and top down).