Word search maker

How to make a word search

The word search maker turns a list of words that you choose into a word search to print and solve with a pencil. It suits a club newsletter, a family get-together, a reunion or a quiet afternoon of your own. You type the words, the page hides them in a grid of large letters, and you print the puzzle with its answers on a second page.

1. Type your words. Put one word on each line, or a comma between words. You need at least 3 words. You can also type a title, up to 40 characters, to print above the puzzle.
2. Choose a size. Small, Larger or Largest (see the sizes below). The note above the box says how many words that size can hold.
3. Press Make my puzzle. The grid appears below the buttons with the list of words to find. The page also tells you about any word it could not use, and why.
4. Look at it. Press Show answers to see where every word is hidden, and press it again to hide them. If you would like a different layout of the same words, press Make a different puzzle as many times as you like.
5. Print it. Press Print, then Print puzzle for one page, or Print with answers to add a second page with the answers. In the print window, choose a scale of 100% (sometimes called "actual size") so the letters print as large as intended.

The puzzle changes only when you press a button, so you can type and change your list as long as you like.

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Worked example

You are planning a garden club meeting and would like a puzzle for it. You type the title Garden club, and nine words, one on each line: tulip, Daisy, rose, lily, violet, sweet pea, hyacinth, rosebud and to. You leave the size on Larger, 13 × 13, and press Make my puzzle.

The page makes a puzzle with seven words, and tells you what it did with the rest. It says that “sweet pea” is written SWEETPEA in the grid. It says that “rose” was left out: it is part of ROSEBUD, so it would be found twice. And it says that “to” was left out: it has fewer than 3 letters. If you would rather keep ROSE than ROSEBUD, take ROSEBUD out of the box and press the button again.

You press Show answers and see a blue outline around each of the seven words. You like the layout, so you press Print and then Print with answers. Two pages come out: the first has the title Garden club above the grid, with the list of seven words underneath, and the second has the grid again with the seven words shaded.

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Which words work

• Words use the letters A to Z, in capitals or small letters. Spaces, hyphens, apostrophes and full stops are taken out, so ice cream becomes ICECREAM. Accents are dropped, so café becomes CAFE.
• A word with a number or any other mark in it is left out.
• Each word needs at least 3 letters, and can't have more letters than the grid is wide.
• If you type a word twice, it is used once.
• A word that is part of another word on your list, frontwards or backwards, is left out. ROSE inside ROSEBUD would be found twice, so you would not know which one to circle.

The page lists every word it leaves out with the reason, so you can change your list and try again.

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Sizes and word limits

• Small, 10 × 10: up to 12 words of up to 10 letters. Words read left to right or top to bottom.
• Larger, 13 × 13: up to 16 words of up to 13 letters. Words can also run diagonally, going down or up, but always read from left to right.
• Largest, 15 × 15: up to 20 words of up to 15 letters. Words can run in any of the eight directions, including backwards: right to left, bottom to top, and diagonally either way. This is the hardest size.

If you type more words than a size holds, the last ones are left out and the page says so. Long words are harder to fit together. If the page says your words would not fit, use fewer words, shorter words or a larger size.

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Tips

• A mix of long and short words works best. Mostly very long words leave few places to hide the others.
• Words that share letters, such as TULIP and LILY, can cross each other.
• Keep a theme, such as places, flowers, the names of a club's books or words from a poem, so the list is easy to check.
• Check the spelling before you print. The grid hides each word exactly as it is written in the list.
• If the letters on the screen feel small, press Text size at the top of the page. It changes the page only, not the printed sheet, which is already in large print.
• Would you rather play on screen? The word search page has a new puzzle every day, and the weekly pack prints a ready-made word search with three other puzzles.

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How these puzzles are made

A program hides your words in the grid, each in a straight line and in a direction that the size allows, and fills the other squares with letters. The same words and size always make the same puzzle, so pressing Make my puzzle twice gives you the same grid, while Make a different puzzle shows other layouts. Before the puzzle appears, the program checks that every listed word is in the grid exactly once, and that no rude word has formed by accident among the filler letters. If a check finds a problem, the program changes the filler letters involved, and if that can't fix it, it tries a new layout. The words you type are your own and are used as you wrote them: the check applies to the filler letters only.

Everything happens in your browser. The words and the title you type are not sent anywhere. The page remembers your title, words and size in this browser, so they are still there when you come back, and Start again removes them.

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