Puzzled with Puzzle Maker in Microsoft Excel - Week 10

Wow, something so simple as creating a crossword puzzle
out of Science vocabulary words threw me for a loop.
Or, I could simply blame it on my home computer as I do not have the latest and greatest version of Microsoft office
software. Something tells me as soon as this semester is over I must upgrade my home laptop for the latest version
of Microsoft whether it be Vista or Microsoft 2007. I could not for the life of me figure out how to create this puzzle in Excel. I figured this would be an easy assignment, but I was so wrong. Now, when I look back at my difficulty and frustration with this assignment I have come to realize I do not know all the tools available on Microsoft Excel. I know the basics of the program but have not try computation calculations on Excel. More tools to explore....whenever the time comes. This was a great exercise as it taught be to create a crossword puzzle from scratch, transfer it to a pdf. file then to a JPEG file. Of course, after an hour of frustration I searched the Internet for some sort of free template to use that was already in the Excel format. No free templates to be founded and most of the so-called free websites to create puzzles were not really free. So, back to drawing board....must learn from scratch - start to finish. And, that is exactly what I did (with a little help from a friend (Brett in Curriculum Library)). If it was not for Brett and Mark in the Curriculum Library, I would be DOOMED! All in all, a great learning experience. Still do not understand why sometimes the little things always stomp me the hardest. Until next time!