You can reach this dialog via the menu entry Crypt/Decrypt \ Symmetric (classic) \ ADFGVX.
In this dialog, the key for the ADFGVX encryption algorithm is entered.
Since ADFGVX is a two-step cascade cipher, the key consists of two parts: the substitution key and the transposition key. Accordingly, the key entry dialog is divided into two sections.
Step 1: Substitution
The substitution matrix is filled with each letter from 'A' to 'Z' and each digit from '0' to '9', other entries are not allowed. On repeated entry of an existing character, a dialog box is displayed, giving the user the possibility to erase the old entry or to undo the change.
The button Standard matrix fills the substitution matrix with all characters in order, the button Random matrix fills it with a random order of all characters. Clicking the button Erase matrix and confirming the pop-up-dialog will erase the substitution matrix. This is a comfortable way to enter examples from literature or other sources.
The button Enter string allows to enter the characters of the transposition matrix as a string (this string must contain all alphabet characters once). This is helpful if you want to reproduce samples from the literature.
Step 2: Transposition
The text field Transposition password can contain any string of characters. Redundant or invalid characters will be removed before de- or encryption. Below the text field, the current sequence of the transposition columns is displayed.
Clicking the Insert key icon inserts an ADFGVX key that was previously copied to the internal key store (if the button is inactive, there is no ADFGVX key available).
Output options
By checking the box Separate output blocks by blanks and entering a value in the according input field for block length, it is possible to display the ciphertext in groups of 1 to 26 characters. The default value "5" is determined by the historical circumstances: During WW1 the ADFGVX-code was transmitted via morse code; the morse signals were sent in groups of five letters.
The check box New line after each block starts a new line of text after each group of letters.
The box Print out intermediate result causes the unpermutated but substituted text to be written to a separate document window. This output can be formatted in the same way as the final ciphertext. By default, the block length is adjusted to the transposition password length.
To enhance the readablility of the ADFGVX-bigrams in step 1, a grouping of two letters is recommended. If you want a better understanding of the column transposition, you should set the grouping of both steps to the current password length and activate the new line option of step 1. You will discover that the text of step 1 read by columns from top to bottom is identical to the final ciphertext read by the line.
If both parts of the ADFGVX key are entered correctly, the button Encrypt is activated. You can now encrypt the document with the ADFGVX encoding method.
If the document is already an ADFGVX encrypted text, the button Decrypt is activated as well and you can decipher the message.