What makes a good word search
A word search is a grid of letters with a list of words hidden in straight lines, and every other cell filled with random letters so the words don't stand out. Three things decide whether the finished puzzle is fun or frustrating: how many words you hide, how long those words are, and which directions they can run.
The words have to fit the grid with room to spare. A 15 × 15 grid holds about fifteen to twenty words comfortably; pack in more and there's barely any random filler left, so the words almost highlight themselves. Too few and the page looks empty. The reference table below matches a word count to a grid size.
Word length matters more than people expect. A two-letter word is found by accident the moment your eye lands anywhere near it, and a three-letter word is nearly as easy. Aim for words of four letters or more; that is long enough to hide and short enough to fit a modest grid. Very long words are the opposite problem — a fourteen-letter word needs a grid at least fourteen cells wide, so it forces the whole puzzle bigger.
Direction is the difficulty dial. Words running only left-to-right and top-to-bottom make an easy puzzle for young children. Adding diagonals and backward words turns the same list into a real hunt for older solvers.
You can build a word search by hand on graph paper, but placing a dozen overlapping words and then filling every remaining cell is slow and error-prone, and you still have to make an answer key. A generator does the placement and the key in one step, which is the point of the tool below.
Using the free Word Search Generator
In the box labeled "Words (one per line)," paste your list, one word per line — letters only, since spaces and punctuation are dropped. Set a title, pick a grid size from the "Grid size" dropdown, and choose Easy or Hard under "Difficulty." Click the purple Download PDF button. You get a puzzle page with the word list beneath the grid, and an answer key on a second page with every word highlighted.
To hand out different sheets so nobody copies a neighbor, set "How many puzzles" above 1. Each puzzle uses the same words on a different grid, and all the answer keys come at the end of the file so you can print once and split the stack.
Printing it and using the answer key
The puzzle itself is easy to print; the two things worth getting right are the scale and which pages you hand out.
- Set the print scale to 100%.
In the print dialog — the window that opens when you choose Print — find the box that says Scale and set it to 100%, or choose "Actual size." "Fit to page" shrinks the grid and can crop the edge letters. - Print in black and white to save ink.
The grid is plain black letters, so there's no reason to use color. Look for a "Black and white" or "Grayscale" checkbox in the print dialog. - Hand out only the puzzle pages.
With one puzzle, that's page 1; the answer key is page 2. With several puzzles, the puzzle pages come first and the answer keys are grouped at the end — give out the front stack and keep the back stack.
How many words fit each grid
A comfortable count leaves plenty of random filler between the words. These are working numbers, not hard limits — a list of short words fits more than a list of long ones.
- 10 × 10 · about 8–10 words, none longer than 10 letters. Good for young children with an easy, across-and-down puzzle.
- 12 × 12 · about 10–14 words. A solid classroom default.
- 15 × 15 · about 15–20 words. The most common size.
- 18 × 18 · about 20–26 words, room for diagonals and longer terms.
- 20 × 20 · about 25–30 words. Use it for long vocabulary lists or a hard, all-directions puzzle.
Words that don't work well
- One- and two-letter words · found by accident; leave them out.
- Words longer than the grid · a 12-letter word cannot fit a 10-wide grid. The tool lists any word it could not place under the puzzle, so make the grid bigger or drop the word.
- Words with rare-letter runs (lots of Q, X, Z) · fine to hide, but they stand out against the filler, which makes an easy puzzle easier.
- Phrases · only the letters survive, so "ICE CREAM" becomes ICECREAM. Decide if that's what you want before pasting.