The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 6 letter word ENCODE
I've seen this crossword clue in The Daily Telegraph
E
N
C
O
D
E
More clues leading to the result ENCODE
- Make cryptic once out of French
- Officer in the first place briefly to turn to Morse?
- Along with the letter, poem put in secret text
- Company’s filling desperate need to put data into a secure format
- Herewith, a poem to make nonsense of
- Scramble data for company in dire need
- Don’t make a message plain
- Company intervening in final close of sale scramble
- Change characters in French poem about Charlie
- … hence, having no beginning or end, poem causes scramble
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Change characters" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case change characters = encode.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does ENCODE mean?
ENCODE verb- To convert (plain text) into code.
- (communication) To convert source information into another form.
- To constitute the code necessary for the biosynthesis of a protein by means of a matrix so as to transcribe DNA material.