A puzzle built around your list
Spelling words, the twelve people coming to the party, every bone in the arm — a word search is one of the few puzzles that works with any list at all, which is why teachers have been drawing them by hand on squared paper for sixty years. This does the drawing. You keep the list.
- 24 words per puzzle, 4 to 15 letters each
- 10 copies in one PDF if you want them — every copy a different layout of the same words
- 0 accounts, uploads or expiry dates on anything you make
How it works
- Paste your words. One per line or comma-separated; punctuation and stray capitals are cleaned up. Anything that can't be used says why rather than vanishing — too short, too long, or a duplicate.
- Watch the grid assemble. The generator places the longest words first and hunts for crossings, because a grid where words share letters is a better puzzle than one where they sit apart. The preview redraws as you type; Shuffle layout deals a different arrangement of the same list.
- Leave with a PDF or a link. The PDF carries an optional answer key, a name-and-date line and a large-print setting. The link opens the puzzle as a real game — timer, hints and all — for anyone you send it to.
How big does the grid need to be?
Bigger than you'd think, and the jump is sharp. Here is the same twelve-word list — 74 letters between them — dropped into grids of different sizes, twenty-five layouts each, counting how often every word found a home.
How often all twelve words fit
25 layouts per size, diagonals on, backwards off.
- 9 × 9 20%
- 10 × 10 96%
- 11 × 11 100%
- 12 × 12 100%
- 13 × 13 100%
One extra row is the difference between fighting the grid and forgetting there was ever a problem: 9×9 manages 20% of the time, and by 11×11 it never fails. Left on Fit to my words the maker picks 13×13 for this list — deliberately a little roomier than the minimum, because a grid that only just works produces a puzzle that only just works.
Choosing words that make a good puzzle
The list matters more than any setting. Four things worth knowing before you paste.
- Six to nine letters is the sweet spot Long words are actually easier to find — they stand out and they cross more things. It's the four-letter words that hide, which is why a list of them makes a harder puzzle than you intended.
- Nested words are fine here CAT and CATS, WALK and WALKED — most makers choke on these or silently drop one. This one places the longer word and then finds the shorter one inside it, so both are on the list and both can be found.
- Keep the theme tight A word search has no clues, so the theme is the clue. Words that share a subject give a solver somewhere to look; a random grab-bag just makes the list longer.
- Twelve is plenty You can have twenty-four, but a dozen words in a comfortable grid takes most people about five minutes — which is the length a word search wants to be.
The three difficulty dials
| Setting | What it does | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Diagonals off | Words run only across and down — two directions to check instead of four | Infant classes, and anyone who wants a gentle one |
| Diagonals on | The default. Four directions, and words cross each other more | Most people, most of the time |
| Backwards words | Eight directions. Roughly doubles the search space and the time | Older solvers, and anyone who found the last one too easy |
| A tighter grid | Fewer filler letters, more crossings, less white space to skim | The quiet difficulty dial nobody thinks of |
The copies setting, and why it exists
Ask for six copies and you get six sheets of the same words in different grids. It's the one feature on this page that came straight from a classroom: a puzzle is only quiet work if the child at the next desk can't read the answers off yours. The answer key covers every copy, so marking is still one page.
What happens to your list
Nothing. There's no account and no server: the grid is built in this page, the PDF is written in this page, and a play link carries the words inside the link itself, lightly scrambled so nobody reads the answers out of the address bar. That has one consequence worth knowing — a link you make today can't expire or be deleted, because there is nothing to delete. It works as long as this site does. Your draft stays in your own browser, so going away to find the spelling list doesn't cost you your setup.
Made a puzzle you like? The link is the whole thing — send it, print it, or paste it into a lesson plan for next year.
Ready-made, if you'd rather not type
There are a few hundred puzzles here already: the random word search at three difficulties, a shared daily grid with streaks and an archive, and researched themed lists across animals, geography and history — each with printable packs of their own. Making something other than a word search? The scramble maker does the same job for jumbled words, and the tools hub has the solvers.