Puzzle Solving Toolbox

This page contains links to all of the puzzle solving tools I featured as bonus blogs in 2011 (except in a couple of cases where I know those sites are no longer functioning) along with a couple of new sites I've found since then. I'm listing them in the reverse order they were published, but will add a * next to the ones I find myself using most often.  As always, please exercise caution in downloading any files from the internet.  These are sites I have used successfully in the past but unfortunately I can't guarantee the safety of any particular site. Updated on 8/20/21.  I made a few additions and fixed or cleaned out some dead links.

New sites:

The basics ...  Google  is your friend, and lots of puzzles were created using Wikipedia

*Wolfram Alpha  incredibly useful site for anything mathematical or number related

Digital Root Calculator for Words calculates the digital root of word or phrase

*Geocaching Toolbox  multipurpose tools (lots in there ... worth some time exploring)

Audacity free downloadable tool for analyzing/editing sound files

*GIMP free downloadable image processing tool

*Cryptocrack powerful free downloadable cipher solver

*What's This W?rd?  very useful crossword puzzle solving tool

LunaPic analyze & compare images

*dCode Solvers, Ciphers, Calculators, Decoders, Online (lots of good stuff here!)

Previously featured:

How To Puzzle Cache this is the facebook page for Cully Long's new (and very useful) book.

*Google Images powerful tool for searching images

The GPS Resource Library   mapping tools & info

Transliteration transliteration tool in 15 different languages

Puzzle Sequences questions/answers and links to interesting number sequences

*BION's cipher page tools for advanced cipher solving

*Jeffrey's Exif viewer get image properties from images

Mathematical Constants Search search mathematical constants pi, e, or the square root of 2

*Number Bases Conversion Tool; Bases 2 - Base 64 Converter converts between mathematical bases

DialABC - Tools for Phone Numbers phone number tools (including audio tools for touch-tones)

AltaMatic - Empowering Amateur Detectives  tools for researchers/historians/detectives/puzzlers

1728.org multipurpose site with lots of tools ... lots of fun to explore.  Scroll down past all the ads.

Black Chamber Vigenere Cracking Tool  from the author of The Code Book

Number Cruncher Everything you ever wanted to know about a particular number

Unicode Character Search  look up unicode characters

Alt codes list list of "alt" codes

*American Cryptogram Association: Cipher Types parameters for different ciphers with examples

*Anagram Solver anagrams your input ... not perfect but can be quite useful for proper nouns.

ASCII, Hex, Unicode, Base64 Converter/Translator  convert between formats of letters/numbers

Frivolities | Basketball-Reference.com Lots of fun info about basketball players

*Omniglot: the guide to languages, alphabets, and other writing systems - historical/literary/constructed alphabets.

The Number Empire lots of numerical tools

*More Words play with this tool and see how much it can do with words

*GPS Visualizer's Coordinate Calculators and Distance Tools lots of useful map-related calculators

List of Numbers in Various Languages 

*Google Earth 
  downloadable version of google maps, or link to web version.  Also includes maps of the moon, Mars, and the stars.

 Geocaching Quick Search  search the geocaching.com site in a variety of ways

I'd Rather Be Caching: Solving Puzzle Caches tips on puzzle solving

Parmtro's Geocaching Pages: Solving Puzzles more tips on puzzle solving from another cacher

CIA World Fact Book statistics, maps, flags, etc.

Sports Database teams, players, jersey numbers, etc.

The Internet Movie Database all kinds of data about movies, tv shows, actors, etc.

Secret Code Breaker tools and links to other tools for solving codes

*Convert Coordinates converts between different coordinate systems

Puzzle Tools and Resources general tips and tools (not by cachers)

ASCII Alphabet Characters   list of ascii codes for alphabet (links to codes for numbers as well)

*ASCII Translator translates to/from ascii in several formats

Binary translator from ascii text to binary and from binary to text  converts binary ascii

*Google Translate translates to/from many languages

Purple Hell Riddle Tools (Archived) lots of good tools ... original site no longer available

ZXing Decoder Online online barcode reader

*Iterative Anagram Solver  my go-to site for creating and solving anagrams 

Morse Code Translator translates to/from Morse code

Encryption Resources - ROT to any number, image search, and Vigenere cipher tool