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Cryptograms

A new cryptogram every day, plus hundreds more from proverbs, Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Poor Richard's Almanack and Aesop. Solve them on screen or print a sheet of six with an answer key.

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Keyboard: type a letter to fill the selected symbol, arrow keys to move, Backspace to erase. “Print 6 Puzzles” uses the difficulty, code and quote source chosen above.

A cryptogram is a puzzle where each letter of a hidden message is swapped for another letter or number, and the same swap is used everywhere. This free cryptogram tool lets you solve one online, right in your browser, with no sign-up.

Puzzles are generated on your device from a library of 422 public-domain quotes. The sources are proverbs, Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack and Aesop’s fables. You can choose Easy, Medium or Hard, switch between letter and number codes, and play either today’s puzzle or a random one. A timer tracks your time, and you can use check and hint buttons when you get stuck.

How to use the Cryptogram

  1. Choose a difficulty from the drop-down: Easy, Medium or Hard. Easy gives you three letters already filled in, Medium gives one, and Hard gives none.
  2. Open the Quotes drop-down and pick a source, or leave it on All sources.
  3. Open the Code drop-down and choose Letters (A = Q style) or Numbers (A = 7 style).
  4. Click or tap a code symbol and type a letter. Every cell with that symbol fills in at once.
  5. Use the arrow keys to move between cells, Backspace or Delete to erase, and Enter to jump to the next open cell. On a phone, use the on-screen keys under the puzzle.
  6. Press Check to mark wrong letters in red and see how many are right.
  7. If you are stuck, press Reveal a Letter. It fills the selected symbol, or the next unsolved one, and counts as a hint.
  8. When you finish, the timer stops and the message shows your time and any revealed letters. The author or source appears under the puzzle.

Press Today’s Cryptogram to reload the daily puzzle, or New Puzzle for a random one. Reveal All shows the full answer, but it does not count toward your daily streak. Clear removes the letters you typed, while given and revealed letters stay in place.

What is a cryptogram?

A cryptogram is a puzzle where every letter of a message is replaced by a symbol, and that replacement stays the same for the whole puzzle. You solve it by working out which symbol stands for which letter, one piece at a time.

On this page, no letter stands for itself, so A is never shown as A. Each letter is swapped through a random arrangement, and in a number code A is never 1.

How to play cryptogram letters and numbers?

In a letter cryptogram, each letter is replaced by another letter, so the puzzle looks like ordinary text with a different alphabet. In a number cryptogram, each letter is replaced by a number from 1 to 26. The numbers are mixed, so A is not always 1.

The same puzzle can be shown in either code. Switching the Code drop-down redraws it without changing the quote. If you place one letter on two different symbols, both cells turn red and a warning appears, because each letter can stand for only one symbol.

What is a number cryptogram?

A number cryptogram uses numbers in place of letters, but the rule is the same as a letter cryptogram. Each number stands for one letter across the whole puzzle. When you find that 14 means E, every 14 in the puzzle is an E.

Number codes can be harder to read at first because you cannot see letter shapes. Start by looking for repeated numbers, since these often match common words.

Cryptogram examples: how a real puzzle works

Take the Shakespeare line “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend.” With one random code, it becomes:

JPCWGPQ H NLQQLOPQ JLQ H XPJKPQ NP; VLQ XLHJ LVW XLIPI NLWG CWIPXV HJK VQCPJK.

In this code, N = J, E = P, R = Q, and the one-letter word A = H. On Easy, the letters E, O and T would already be filled in, which gives you a head start.

Is a cryptogram easy to solve?

Most people find Easy puzzles manageable once they know a few patterns. Several rules of thumb hold in English:

  • A one-letter word is almost always A or I.
  • E, T, A and O are the most common letters.
  • A repeated three-letter word is often THE or AND.
  • After an apostrophe, a lone letter is usually S or T, and two letters are often LL or RE.
  • Shakespeare and Bible texts often use THE, THY, THOU and words ending in -ETH.

Check your guesses as you go. Pressing Check is useful for confirming a pattern before you fill in more cells.

What is a cryptoquote or cryptoquip?

A cryptoquote is a cryptogram whose hidden text is a quotation, which is what this page uses. A cryptoquip is a name that newspapers use for a cryptogram, often one with a pun as the answer. Both use the same letter-swap method, so the solving rules above apply to each.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a new cryptogram every day?

Yes. A daily puzzle loads when you open the page. It is the same for everyone on the same date, quote source and difficulty, and it changes at midnight by your own device’s clock. Solving it on consecutive days builds a streak.

Can I print cryptograms with answers?

Yes. Print This Puzzle prints the current puzzle as a worksheet with a Name and Date line, instructions, and an A-Z strip for crossing off letters. Print 6 Puzzles prints six different quotes on one page at your chosen difficulty and code. The “Add an answer key page” box is ticked by default and adds a second page with every answer and source.

Do I need an account?

No. The tool is free and needs no sign-up. Puzzles are generated on your device from a quotes file, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. On a phone, tap the on-screen QWERTY keys under the puzzle to type letters. The keys dim any letter you have already used.

Is my progress saved?

Your daily streak and best streak are stored only in your browser. A half-finished puzzle is not saved, so you will need to finish it in one visit.

Is there a bible cryptogram?

Yes. Choose King James Bible from the Quotes drop-down. That source has 75 quotes from the King James Bible.

Is a cryptoquip free to solve here?

This tool is free to use. It uses the same letter-swap method as a cryptoquip, which is the name newspapers use for a cryptogram. To solve a puzzle from a newspaper automatically, use the cryptogram solver instead.

  • Cryptogram Solver: use this when you have a cryptogram of your own and want it solved for you.
  • Cryptogram Maker: use this to write your own message and turn it into a cryptogram.
  • Caesar Cipher: use this to practise a simpler cipher where every letter shifts by the same amount.
  • Codeword Solver: use this when you are working on a codeword puzzle with numbered squares.
  • Hangman: use this for a quick word-guessing game that trains letter patterns.
  • Word Ladder Solver: use this to change one word into another one letter at a time.
  • Crossword Maker: use this to build a crossword grid from your own word list.
  • Anagram Solver: use this to find words hidden in a set of scrambled letters.

Background: frequency analysis

History and usage

The first known recorded explanation of frequency analysis (indeed, of any kind of cryptanalysis) was given in the 9th century by Al-Kindi, an Arab polymath, in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages. It has been suggested that a close textual study of the Qur'an first brought to light that Arabic has a characteristic letter frequency. Its use spread, and similar systems were widely used in European states by the time of the Renaissance. By 1474, Cicco Simonetta had written a manual on deciphering encryptions of Latin and Italian text.

Several schemes were invented by cryptographers to defeat this weakness in simple substitution encryptions. These included:

Homophonic substitution: Use of homophones — several alternatives to the most common letters in otherwise monoalphabetic substitution ciphers. For example, for English, both X and Y ciphertext might mean plaintext E.

Polyalphabetic substitution, that is, the use of several alphabets — chosen in assorted, more or less devious, ways (Leone Alberti seems to have been the first to propose this); and

Polygraphic substitution, schemes where pairs or triplets of plaintext letters are treated as units for substitution, rather than single letters, for example, the Playfair cipher invented by Charles Wheatstone in the mid-19th century.

Frequency analysis in fiction

Frequency analysis has been described in fiction. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold-Bug" and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tale "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" are examples of stories which describe the use of frequency analysis to attack simple substitution ciphers. The cipher in the Poe story is encrusted with several deception measures, but this is more a literary device than anything significant cryptographically.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article “Frequency analysis” (revision 1362175938, 2026-07-02), authors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Shortened: some sections and paragraphs were left out, and reference markers, images and templates were removed; wording is otherwise unchanged. This text remains available under the same licence.