Make a word search from your own list, to solve on screen or on paper

Difficulty is mostly directions and size

Two quieter dials change difficulty too. Filler letters drawn from the same letters as the words make them harder to spot than random letters do. Overlapping words that share letters make the grid denser and the search trickier. For young solvers, turn both off.

What a generator has to get right

• Every word fits, or it says so. Long words in a small grid can fail to place. A good word search maker either enlarges the grid or names the words it couldn't fit.
• Clean input. Spaces and hyphens removed ("ICE CREAM" becomes ICECREAM), capitals throughout, and the word list shown as the user typed it.
• No accidental words. Random filler can spell something you don't want in front of a class. Generators handle this by checking the finished grid against a short blocklist and reshuffling filler letters if a match turns up.
• Different every time, or fixed. Regenerating gives a new layout; for a class set, you want one fixed grid so everyone's sheet matches.

Solving on a screen

On a phone, players swipe from the first letter to the last; with a mouse, they click and drag, or click the first and last letter. A found word gets a coloured band through it and is crossed off the list. Small touches make it pleasant: the band snaps to the eight valid directions so a wobbly swipe still counts, the grid fills the screen width with letters large enough to hit with a thumb, and a timer is optional rather than forced. For keyboard users, arrow keys to move a cursor and Enter to mark start and end make it fully playable without a mouse.

On paper

For a worksheet, ask for a paper version alongside the playable one: grid in a monospace layout with even spacing, the word list in columns below, a line for a name and date, and the solution with words outlined on a separate sheet. Black on white with no background colours keeps school printers happy. A Print button in the app opens the browser's print dialog, from which you can print or save a PDF.

Building it with Anticode

Give the list, the solver and the settings: "A word search for Year 2 with these 10 spelling words, 10 by 10, forwards and downwards only, swipe to select on tablets, a cheerful find animation, and a paper version with the answers on page two." The model writes the placement logic and the game in one HTML document. If you want to reuse it as a tool, ask for an editor screen where you type a new list and press Generate; lists save in your browser for next week.

Themed puzzles work well for events: a baby shower word search of names and nursery words, a museum trail sheet, a brand stand where visitors find product names. The design follows your colours or a style you describe, and nothing in the app needs a connection once it's loaded.

Limits

• Each player's progress is their own. No class results or shared timer board.
• No dictionary of filler words. Filler is letters, not words, so there's no themed hidden bonus word unless you add it to your list.
• Lists you type in the editor stay on your device. To publish a fixed new puzzle, ask for it as a change to the build.
• Languages with accents. Decide whether accented letters stay accented in the grid; say so in the request.

For a puzzle with clues rather than a list, see the crossword maker; for practising the same words actively, try spelling practice or a bingo card generator for a group.

Questions people ask

Can I hide a secret message in the leftover letters?

Yes. Ask for the unused letters, read in order, to spell a phrase. It's a nice finish for older solvers, and the generator fills the remaining gaps with it instead of random letters.

Can I make several different grids for a class to stop copying?

Ask for a set of versions from the same list, each with its own layout and answer sheet.

Does it need an account to play?

No. Anyone with the link plays straight away, with nothing to sign into.