Cipher Puzzle Maker
Turn any message into a Caesar shift, Atbash, keyword alphabet, Vigenère, Morse or A1Z26 puzzle. Shows you the decode so you can check before printing.
The puzzle
The key
Check it decodes
This is the puzzle above put back through the cipher in reverse. If it does not match what you typed, do not hand the sheet out.
Which cipher for which puzzle
- None of these is security. Substitution ciphers were being broken in the ninth century, and every one here is weaker than that. Which is exactly what makes them good puzzles.
- For young children: A1Z26 numbers, or reversed words. Both are cracked in a minute and neither needs a key handed over.
- For a treasure hunt: Morse, with the chart hidden as the first clue. It is not really a cipher, and that is the point.
- For something that takes real work: a keyword alphabet. The solver has to use letter frequencies and short words rather than try 25 shifts.
- Vigenère was called the indecipherable cipher for three hundred years, and against hand methods it very nearly was. Expect it to take a while.
- Punctuation, spacing and capitals are preserved by every cipher here except Morse and A1Z26, which cannot carry them. The check panel above proves it rather than claiming it.
How to use
- Type your message and pick a cipher.
- Check the decode panel matches what you typed.
- Print, with or without the key.
Frequently asked questions
Is any of this secure?
No, and it is not meant to be. Substitution ciphers were being broken in the ninth century and every method here is weaker than that. What makes them poor secrecy is exactly what makes them good puzzles — they can be cracked by hand in a sitting.
Which cipher should I use?
For young children, A1Z26 numbers or reversed words — quick to crack and no key to hand over. For a treasure hunt, Morse with the chart hidden as the first clue. For something that takes real work, a keyword alphabet, which forces the solver to use letter frequencies rather than try 25 shifts.
Why does it show me the decode?
So you can check rather than trust. The panel puts the puzzle back through the cipher in reverse and compares it with what you typed. If the two do not match, the sheet is wrong and the person solving it would have been the one to find out.
What happens to punctuation?
Every cipher here preserves spacing, punctuation and capitals, except Morse and A1Z26, which have no way to carry them. Those two are marked as such rather than quietly dropping characters.
How does a keyword alphabet work?
The keyword is written first with any repeated letters dropped, then the rest of the alphabet follows in order. So LETTER becomes L-E-T-R and then A, B, C and so on, skipping the four already used. The point is that the key is a word you can remember rather than 26 letters to copy out.
Why was Vigenère called indecipherable?
Because the shift changes with every letter, so counting letter frequencies over the whole message tells you nothing. It held up for about three hundred years, until people worked out how to find the key length and then attack each position separately.
🔒 This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, logged, or stored.