Word Search Generator

How to use the word search generator

1. Type Your words (one per line). A sample list of fruits is filled in so you can see how it works; replace it with your own words, up to 60 of them.
2. Choose the Grid size, from 8 × 8 to 25 × 25, and the Difficulty: - Easy: left to right and top to bottom, ideal for young readers; - Medium: adds diagonals going down and up to the right; - Hard: all 8 directions, including backwards, so words can also read right to left, bottom to top or along any diagonal.
3. Pick the Filler letters: English letter frequencies or French letter frequencies. The empty squares are filled with random letters drawn as often as they appear in that language, so the grid looks like real text and the hidden words do not stand out.
4. The puzzle appears on the right. Play it on screen, or type a Puzzle title, choose the Paper size, keep Add an answer key page ticked and click Download PDF to print it.
5. New puzzle shuffles the grid with a new Seed code.

Playing on screen

Drag across a word with the mouse or your finger, or click its first letter and then its last letter. Found words turn green in the grid and are crossed out in Words to find; the counter and the timer show your progress. With a keyboard, move with the arrow keys and press Enter on the first and last letters. Show solution highlights the words you have not found yet, and Start again clears your progress on the same grid.

How the words are placed

Words are converted to plain capital letters A to Z: accents are removed (é becomes E, ç becomes C), œ and æ become OE and AE, and spaces, hyphens and apostrophes disappear, so “pêche” is hidden as PECHE and “ice cream” as ICECREAM. The word list keeps your spelling. The longest words are placed first, at random positions in the directions allowed by the difficulty, and words may cross when they share a letter. After filling, the tool checks that each word can be read exactly once in the grid, in any direction, and draws new filler letters if a word appeared a second time by chance.

Some words are left out, with a message: words longer than the grid, words shorter than 2 letters, and words that are part of another word in the list (CAT inside CATALOG would be found twice). If the grid is too small for all the words, the ones that did not fit are listed: choose a bigger grid, fewer words or a harder level, which allows more directions.

Reproducible puzzles

The grid depends only on the words, the settings and the Seed code. Keep the code and you can print the very same puzzle again later, for another class or a replacement copy, and the answer key will match it.

Ideas for using word searches

Teachers use them to review spelling and vocabulary (weekly spelling words, science terms, words in a foreign language); parents make birthday or holiday puzzles with family names; activity coordinators print large-letter grids for seniors. For young children, choose Easy and 8 × 8 or 10 × 10 with short words. For adults, Hard at 18 × 18 or more with 25 to 40 words is a real challenge.