rot13 encoding is used to allow people not to know the clue word if they want to solve the entered clues. If anyone can't decode the clues using their newsreader (for example in the newsreaders "rn", "trn" and "strn" press CTRL+X) there are a few options open to them: 1) Decode the words manually. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ rot13 encoding works by moving 13 letters along the alphabet from the original letter. It doesn't matter if you go 13 before or 13 after; the result is the same. A decoding/encoding table is shown below: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z In the above table, the letters in the same vertical line are rot13 encodings of each other. So if you want to decode say the letter W find W on the table then replace it with the letter in the same column (i.e. J). (e.g. try decoding CHMMYR, which is one way to describe a CROSSWORD, which becomes PEBFFJBEQ when encoded) N.B. Punctuation marks are not changed by rot13. 2) If you have UNIX. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can use the 'tr' command. What I have done is to include the following line in my .cshrc file: alias rot13 tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m Then at the unix prompt I can type: unix% rot13 Then any line I type is decoded/encoded. To quit, press CTRL+D. If you want to change a whole file to rot13 the command is: unix% tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m < file1 > file2 or if you have aliased a rot13 command: unix% rot13 < file1 > file2 where file1 is the original file and file2 is the encoded one. 3) Email me, Ryan Harding (rkh2@ukc.ac.uk), and ask me to decode it for you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This speaks for itself. (Yes, I have triple-checked my email address) 4) If you have access to a PC computer... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ...I can email you a copy of a short program called ROT13.BAS which will decode/encode any string of characters you enter. This program works in QBASIC (which comes with DOS) or QuickBasic. Just email me and ask nicely! 5) If you have another type of computer... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ...I could still send you the BASIC program for the PC. If you have another version of QuickBasic (eg. for the Mac) it should work fine. If not, you can convert it to your own flavour of BASIC or another language.