This post is a community-wiki compilation of useful puzzle tools and websites.
If you find some useful source, please edit the according answer post to add it.
Also add a short description, please.
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3$\begingroup$ THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! :D $\endgroup$– Mr PieCommented Jul 7, 2019 at 16:30
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$\begingroup$ Why isn't this list of tools on the main site? It certainly is about puzzles themselves more than about the functioning of the site. $\endgroup$– humnCommented Apr 4, 2020 at 1:47
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$\begingroup$ @humn; Originally I had this post on MathJax in mind : math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5020/…, which is hosted on Meta. Several people have suggested it should be on the main site, but I don't know how to migrate it. $\endgroup$– JMPCommented Apr 4, 2020 at 4:15
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7 Answers
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Cipher Tools
- Rumkin has a pretty neat collection of cipher tools for both encrypting and decrypting
- Vigenere Cipher Codebreaker can solve vigenere ciphers with or without the key. (You will need sufficiently long ciphertext to break the cipher without a key.)
- Len Schulwitz is useful for encoding/decoding those pesky base 58 numbers
- QuipQiup can attempt to solve simple substitution cryptograms automatically for you
- Rot13.com for rot13/any other Caesar cipher. Already covered by Rumkin, but easier to remember url for quick encryption/decryption
- dcode.fr has many decryption tools sorted by different categories
- Cyberchef is a multi tool for detecting encoding and performing several operations of decryption or encryption of data (and much more)
- Cryptii has a wide collection of encryption and decryption tools sorted by category. It allows multiple tools to be chained, but does not support decryption without the key.
- A1Z26@Planet Calc. A=1, B=2, ..., Z=26. You know you want to...
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Graphics Tools
- RGB Color Wheel correlates colors to RGB (
#RRGGBBand 255-255-255) and HSV ( °-%-%) - GIF-Explode is a web-tool to show individual frames of animated gif images. Just provide the link to the image.
- GeoGebra Tools are an online collection of tools for drawing geometries and mathematical content online.
- TinkerCAD is a browser-based 3D modelling program.
The REJBÄS puzzle uses this example. - ezgif is a very good gif editor with several tools including a compressor (transparency recommended), cropping and resizing.
- GIFgifs is another very good gif editor similar to the one above
- Jfly Color Universal Design suggests colors to use in puzzle design
- Coblis simulates different kinds of color vision for any picture
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Word Tools
- Litscape has an extensive list of words finding tools (for example pattern matching, words containing or made from certain letters, single word anagrams, etc)
- Ceptimus Word Ladder solver, finds a word ladder from word A to word B
Wordsmith's Advanced Anagramming is a multilingual, multi-word anagram solver with a range of options to restrict anagrams by word count, word lengths, repeats, white and black lists, etc.
Anagram Solver seems to have indexed the title of almost every Wikipedia article, among many other things. If you're looking for an anagram involving proper names or obscure concepts, it can be very helpful. You might have to search through a long list of results, though, and you'll have to put up with some fairly invasive ads.
Iterative Anagram Solver allows you to find multi-word anagrams iteratively, by selecting individual partial anagram words from the input, and then re-generating possible words from the remainder of letters.
Regex Dictionary allows you to search a dictionary with regular expressions, and is useful when Litscape's pattern matching isn't enough (assuming you know how to write a regex)
Nutrimatic is another regex search (as well as offering anagramming), using a dictionary of words and phrases mined from Wikipedia.
Qat is a powerful word constraint matcher which can sometimes allow for simpler syntax compared to regex searches.
Onelook offers a phrase pattern matcher and can sort candidate phrases by commonness.
Thesaurus allows you to find synonyms and antonyms for English words.
Rhymer is a quick an easy tool for finding rhyming words.
Google Sheets are a great tool for building and (community-)solving word-search puzzles on a regular grid. (example)
Google Ngrams lets you search the frequency of word occurrences in books over time.
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Number Tools
The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences is useful for puzzles involving integer sequences
Base Converter converts between binary, decimal, hexadecimal and ASCII
Calculator Soup is a cornucopia of tools (index) for manipulating numbers in myriad contexts, even sports
Prime Factors Calculator calculates the prime factors of integers less than $10^{20}$. Options for showing as a list (e.g.
7*7) and in exponential form (e.g.7^2).Prime Factors Calculator calculates the prime factors of integers up to $10^{10}$. It shows prime factors: as a list, in exponential form, as a decomposition tree, and by ordinality
What's Special About This Number? is a trove of clues related to numbers
One Million Digits of Pi for anything related to the constant π.
Web 2.0 scientific calculator for a scientific calculator and graphing tool (with ads)
AnyDice ouputs dice results distributions for any configuration of dice. Very flexible! ( See this puzzle and result )
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Puzzle Tools
- Chess board editor is an online interactive chessboard with PGN viewer and editor
- Sudoku Solver is a fully featured sudoku solver by Andrew Stuart
- Qhex Puzzle Tools contains a wide array of puzzling tools, including solving various logic puzzles (Masyu, Sudoku, Lights Out, Thermometers, Kakuro, Fill-a-Pix, Minesweeper, Hitori, Nurikabe, Tapa, Hasiwokakero, Numberlink, Shikaku, Fillomino, Nonograms, Dissections), word searches, some ciphers, and a word searching engine as well.
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Useful Information Sources
- Telephone Dialing Codes for countries, and also shows their flags
- Internet Movie DataBase for film and TV references
- Runes - for all things runey
- Wolfram|Alpha - computational knowledge engine
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Geography Tools
- Measure Distance on a Map measures the distance and travel time between two places, with many options such as snapping to road or not, mode of transport (including different levels of car speeds) and units to measure in.
- London Underground map is a map that shows all the tube stations in London, England.
- Altitude map lets you find the altitude in feet or meters of a certain place, searchable by address, city, or latitude/longitude.
- OpenStreetMap is an open-licensed map.
- CountryCode.org for ISO Country Codes, Telephone Codes, Population, etc.
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$\begingroup$ Is a London Underground map really going to be an oft-used tool? It's not fixed, and why London in particular, why not, say, New York? $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 25, 2017 at 21:47
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1$\begingroup$ I don't know, @boboquack. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 25, 2017 at 23:14
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$\begingroup$ @boboquack Maybe someone will make a puzzle that's decoded with Mornington Crescent. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 7, 2019 at 0:20