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Deciphering ATH Codes

Downloadable Decoding Aids

The following are Excel workbooks that allow messages to be encoded or decoded using various ciphers. If you want to know more about how these ciphers work then The Code Book by Simon Singh is well worth a read.

In each workbook there is a tab for Encode and Decode operations. In each sheet the message and any codewords are entered into the white cells, and the result appears in the blue cells. Any restrictions are documented in the form of notes that can be seen by holding the cursor above cells marked with a red triangle.

All the workbooks have been virus-checked and contain no macros.

Download the relevant cipher workbook by clicking on the appropriate link and saving it to a local folder location on your computer:

The Substitution workbook will encode and decode various ciphers similar to Poe's Gold Bug code (with which it is initialised). There is also a facility to count the frequency of letters or symbols in any piece of encoded text.

A Line-Word-Letter cipher is the type where the letters of the coded message are picked out of a piece of text, such as a poem, as three numbers - line, word and letter. The encoding tab of this workbook doesn't take things very far, but the decode side works well.

If you have any questions or spot any bugs then please alert the ATH Contact.