I experienced severe problems accessing the Wednesday puzzles overnight because the on-line newspaper was late rolling them over. However they were available from midnight via the club although I note that following a further revamp on the newspaper puzzles pages the tile linking to the Crossword Club has been removed. Here is a direct link to the Club should you need it https://www.thetimes.com/puzzleclub/crosswordclub/ .
Those of you who like to print and solve on paper will be in for a shock, because the font size for clues has been reduced and the grid sizes for both QC and the main puzzle are now 7.5cm x 7.5cm. The main puzzle used to be 11cm x 11cm which is a significant reduction – so small that I can barely see to solve.
The name of the QC setter is missing from the print-out.
UPDATE 09:20 Wednesday: I raised the printing issue, the missing setter name and the removal of the Crossword Club tile with Mick Hodgkin, Puzzles Editor and received this reply:
Mick Hodgkin
The News Building, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
****************
If you have any observations on the changes please post them on this thread rather than in the individual puzzle blogs.
As blogger, I refreshed the Crossword Club page on my laptop bang on midnight, and today’s puzzles appeared immediately. Consequently, I was done and dusted by 1.15am…
The crosswords display without grid or clues for me. But I’m in China so maybe a problem with the great firewall. But they both worked fine on my phone (except I hate that tiny keyboard).
My print preset has been 80 percent for a long time, but at 100 percent now the grid is still small enough for me.
Thanks for starting this thread Jack. Agreed that it’s pretty impossible to do the crosswords at the reduced size, although I’m hoping this was just an editing error and can be corrected back to the normal size. I did also notice that today’s printout has word-breaks in the grid, although faint they are there.
Other than the sizing issue, I didn’t have any problem accessing today’s crosswords at midnight GMT (0900 hrs Oz) but I don’t use the crossword club link, rather the crosswords link which appears above the club link.
I eventually resorted to using the ‘Printable Puzzles’ link which brings up a page with ALL puzzles of the day in one 11 page PDF and managed to print the required page without printing all 11 pages. Horrible print-out though with pure black and white grid.
No problem here, but I access the puzzles on the club site, and I gather they haven’t got around yet to screwing that up.
ON EDIT:Out of curiosity, I went to the Times site and did the puzzle there, having already done it on the club site. And it seemed fine: I increased the text size to maximum, which though not ideal is large enough. The grid size and letters are quite large. The one defect is the printout, which as Jack says is too small (I wonder what a Jumbo will look like).
I do too, and, as reported, the grid is noticeably smaller. I printed at 100 percent, instead of 80 as usual (I don’t like printing big letters like a schoolchild), and it’s still not too big.
Crosswords have disappeared completely from the Classic app
Crosswords are back on the Classic app on 18th but Crossword Club still missing, with a Sudoku in its place.
Friday Crosswords, including Crossword Club, are missing again from the Classic app again on Friday. The Times spent a fortune upgrading it, and then fixing all the errors, but the available content is decreasing every week (WherewasI, and Readers’Lives have disappeared recently). But there seems to be no way of complaining about it.
What on earth have they done now? The grid, when printed is a quarter the size of the usual one.
Please see the update to my intro, above.
Thank you. I hope that the sitch is remedied pronto.
The grid now prints to the usual size but the font is still a notch smaller than previously
The tile for the crossword club has disappeared from the app. This is the second time in a week that the crossword club has been messed around with. Why can’t they leave things alone?
I can get to today’s crossword by going into yesterdays edition which still has the link to the crossword club!
Genius Tim! Thank you.
This link: https://www.thetimes.com/puzzleclub/crosswordclub/
does not work – at least for me.
I just clicked the link as posted by you, and it was fine. Have you tried copying and pasting it into the address bar?
All that does for me, Jack, is require me to log in to the Times, and once I’ve done that it just comes up with the same as I see on the app: i.e. the Puzzles section without a tile for the Club. Anyway, sorted now thanks to Mr Moriarty’s lateral thinking!
Nor me.
I always solve via the printed version. I have just tried to print it and the link doesn’t work.
Why can’t they leave things alone?
They’ve just put up the subscription price and now this! Improvement means deterioration.
Pro tem I discovered this way of getting a decent size puzzle to print.
Go to: https://www.thetimes.com/puzzles
Half way down on the right is an option to print. The main cryptic is on page seven. It worked!
It won’t do for me, I’m afraid. I hate black squares and because of yesterday’s solution displaying alongside, the clues are all squashed up.
It is better than the current offering! I hope all will revert to normal tomorrow.
Yes, I tried this. It does work but the resultant printed grid and clues are still very small.
If it isn’t rectified it is going to be a real pain having to switch the laptop on every day rather than printing via my phone.
I raised a thread on the Club Forum about the print format before seeing the update here. I’m glad to hear it was accidental.
No problems with the size of the grid etc. But the facility to enter answers skipping letters doesn’t work properly. The first letter isn’t skipped. And there is no pause button. I told them so on the questionnaire but who knows how long they’ll take to see what I’ve said, let alone do anything about it.
My father is subscribed to a link he gets of the puzzle everyday. It wasn’t working today, I wonder if anyone else has the same issue. I usually email this pdf to my Kindle scribe so I go solve on there.
You can normally click on the link to access a PDF of the puzzle and today the link doesn’t work at all.
This is the email :
You can download a printable version of this Times Quick Cryptic by sending this message to your email inbox and clicking on the following link:
crossword-20250917-73369.pdf
We hope you enjoy your puzzle from The Times.
I would add my “why can’t they leave things alone ?” to the general chorus. And, as someone pointed out, they have increased the subscription. Still, it’s been great to come to this site and find helpful information so thanks for that.
Swiftly! I am delighted that the keyboard problem in the Killer Sudoku was fixed today but it has taken a fortnight.
I have noticed the “Crossword Club” tile being missing a couple of times when starting my solve for the blog at bang-on midnight UK time. But I found that after waiting 10 minutes or so, it was there when I looked again. Of course, your mileage may vary.
Wish I’d seen your comment this morning, Jack, before printing the Quick and the full Cryptic and sending off an outraged email to Mick Hodgkin, having read that they’d ‘improved’ the site! I’m very relieved to hear that it’s only temporary.
I am pleased to report that the option to print from a mobile phone is now working and the grid/font size is back to normal.
Thanks to Mick Hodgkin and the tech guys and gals at The Times.
classic puzzle app on android unable to download or email puzzles to print.
also the crossword days appear to be out sync? its showing saturdays puzzles under thursday. and also not loading all of the rest properly…
anyone else experiencing these issues? ive already emailed about the lack of print options but not had a response for a few days. app version 2.2.0.