Word Search Maker

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Add the Word Search Maker to your own site, class page or blog: paste this code where it should appear. It runs in the visitor’s browser like this page does.

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How to make a word search

  1. Type your words, one per line: spelling lists, vocabulary, names for a party, terms for a training session. Up to 60 words.
  2. Pick the grid and difficulty: 10 by 10 to 20 by 20; Easy (across and down), Medium (adds diagonals) or Hard (all eight directions, including backwards).
  3. Make puzzle, check it on screen and press Show answers to see where every word went. Make a new puzzle for a fresh layout of the same words.
  4. Print: page one is the puzzle with the word list, page two the answer key.

How the puzzle is built, and what we checked

Words are placed longest first, because they are the hardest to fit. For each word the tool draws a random direction allowed by the difficulty and a random starting square, using crypto.getRandomValues(), and keeps the first spot where the whole word fits on the grid and any square it shares with an earlier word already holds the same letter. If some words still don’t fit, it starts over, up to forty times, and keeps the layout that fit the most. Every square left empty gets a random letter from A to Z.

We ran the tool’s own generator 300 times at each level on October 14, 2026, with a 12-word space list on a 15 by 15 grid. All 12 words fit in all 900 puzzles; every placed word read correctly from its starting square, no word used a direction its level does not allow, and every other square held a letter from A to Z. On Hard, words ran in all eight directions; diagonals came up about half as often as straight lines (1,078 diagonal placements against 2,522 straight), because a long word fits along a diagonal in fewer ways.

Tips

For younger children, use Easy on a 10 by 10 grid with eight to ten short words. For a harder puzzle, add more words rather than only a bigger grid: a large grid with few words is mostly random letters and slow to search. Words that share letters (STAR, START, STARE) make the hunt trickier, since a found word may hide inside a longer one. Need a game for the whole class next? The Bingo Card Generator makes printable cards from the same kind of word list.

Sources

Checked on .

Frequently Asked Questions

How do the difficulty levels differ?+
Easy places words left to right and top to bottom only. Medium adds the two diagonals that read left to right. Hard uses all eight directions, so words can also run backwards, upwards and along the reverse diagonals.
What happens to spaces, hyphens and accents?+
They are removed and letters are capitalized, so ice-cream becomes ICECREAM, New York becomes NEWYORK and Café becomes CAFE. Each word needs at least two letters, and duplicates are dropped.
Why didn't every word fit?+
A word longer than the grid can never fit, and many long words on a small grid can block each other. The tool tries forty complete layouts and keeps the one that fits the most words, then lists any it could not place; a bigger grid or a harder level, which allows more directions, usually solves it.
How do I print the answer key?+
Print puzzle + answer key prints the puzzle on the first page and the key, with every word highlighted, on the second. Choose Save as PDF in the print dialog to keep a file.
Are my words sent anywhere?+
No. The puzzle is made in your browser, and your list and settings are saved only on this device for next time.

Built by Derek Giordano · Part of Ultimate Design Tools

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