Frequently Asked Questions
What is a word search?
A word search is a puzzle where there are rows of letters placed in the shape of a square, and there are words written forwards, backwards, horizontal, vertical or diagonal. There will be a list of words for the player to look for and the goal of the player is to find those words hidden in the word search puzzle, and highlight them.
How do I choose the words to use in my word search?
Once you’ve picked a theme, choose words that have a variety of different lengths, difficulty levels and letters. You don’t need to worry about trying to fit the words together with each other because WordMint will do that for you!
How are word searches used in the classroom?
Word search games are an excellent tool for teachers, and an excellent resource for students. They help to encourage wider vocabulary, as well as testing cognitive abilities and pattern-finding skills.
Because the word search templates are completely custom, you can create suitable word searches for children in kindergarten, all the way up to college students.
Who is a word search suitable for?
One of the common word search faq’s is whether there is an age limit or what age kids can start doing word searches. The fantastic thing about word search exercises is, they are completely flexible for whatever age or reading level you need.
Word searches can use any word you like, big or small, so there are literally countless combinations that you can create for templates. It is easy to customise the template to the age or learning level of your students.
How do I create a word search template?
For the easiest word search templates, WordMint is the way to go!
Pre-made templates
For a quick an easy pre-made template, simply search through WordMint’s existing 500,000+ templates. With so many to choose from, you’re bound to find the right one for you!
Create your own from scratch
- Log in to your account (it’s free to join!)
- Head to ‘My Puzzles’
- Click ‘Create New Puzzle’ and select ‘Word Search’
- Select your layout, enter your title and your chosen words
- That’s it! The template builder will create your word search template for you and you can save it to your account, export as a Word document or PDF and print!
How can I print my word search template?
All of our templates can be exported into Microsoft Word to easily print, or you can save your work as a PDF to print for the entire class. Your puzzles get saved into your account for easy access and printing in the future, so you don’t need to worry about saving them at work or at home!
Can I create a word search in other languages?
Word searches are a fantastic resource for students learning a foreign language as it tests their reading comprehension skills in a fun, engaging way.
We have full support for word search templates in Spanish, French and Japanese with diacritics including over 100,000 images.
Enter Letters and word bank below to use the word search solver
Please Wait!!. We are solving your word search puzzle…
Stuck on a word search? Have you spent what feels like hours hunting for that one missing word to solve your puzzle? You’re in the right place: welcome to our Word Search Solver! Whether you need help solving a school assignment or just want to finish your puzzle before you lose your sanity, you can use our tool to quickly and easily find the missing words you’re looking for.
How To Use the Word Search Solver
- Create your board: In the ‘Create Board’ box, type all the letters that appear on your board in the order they appear. Don’t forget to hit return between lines to ensure correct formatting. The board preview will automatically update as you type, so you can check to make sure the board is accurate as you go.
- Enter words to find: If you’re looking for particular words in your search, you can enter them into the ‘Find these words’ box. When searching for multiple words, make sure to separate them using commas. Spaces aren’t necessary between words.
- Set searching parameters: Our tool allows you to search only for specific words or to search for any word found in the dictionary. If you don’t have specific words you want to search for, set the parameter to ‘Dictionary only.’ Even if you are looking for specific words, it can be fun to see all the words that appear in your search, whether intentionally included or not!
Tips for Solving Word Searches
This section describes some tips on how to improve at word search puzzles.
Scan each row for key letters.
Although this is not the quickest way to solve a puzzle, it is likely the most thorough when you are stuck. Instead of randomly searching the board, start at the top left corner of the board and, row-by-row, scan for key letters or letter combinations. For instance, if one of the words you are searching for is ‘puzzle’, scan the board for the letter ‘P’ or ‘Z’. This methodical approach can help ensure you don’t miss anything hiding in plain sight!
Look for the longest words first.
If your board includes long words, try searching for those first. They’re often easy to find, because they take up a significant amount of space on the board — and they can help you narrow down available search areas for other, shorter words.
Make sure you know your board’s rules.
Depending on the word search, there might be different rules about how words can appear on the board. For instance, some word searches might allow for words to be placed diagonally and backwards across the board, while others may not. Make sure you know your board’s rules, so you’re not missing out on different ways the word could appear.
Look for key two-letter combinations.
Sometimes, if a word contains a lot of common letters, that word can be harder to find on the board. To narrow down your search, try to find a unique two-letter combination within the word that you can search for. These combinations will be less likely to appear randomly on your board, and can significantly narrow down your search time. For instance, if you’re searching for the word ‘Aubergine,’ you might look for the ‘AU’ letter combination instead of only searching for ‘A’s.
Scan the board backwards, or turn it upside down.
If you find yourself stumped, a good way to change your perspective is to scan the board backwards or upside down. For instance, starting at the bottom right corner and looking for key letters might help you find something you missed when scanning from left to right. Similarly, physically turning the board upside down might help you notice patterns on the board that you previously missed.
Use your finger or a pen to keep your place.
It can be easy to lose yourself in all those letters. When you’re scanning the board, keep your place with your finger or a pointing device in order to ensure you don’t inadvertently skip any lines or letters.
Where to Find Word Searches of All Difficulty Levels
The Word Finder has our own word search puzzles to browse and play. Whether you’re a teacher looking for a way to entertain their students, or a hobbyist who just likes to keep their mind sharp, we have word searches for all different ages, topics, and difficulty levels. For many of our puzzles, you can even customize the difficulty level for different players. For instance, you can generate an ‘easy’ Taylor Swift word search for one child, and a ‘hard’ Taylor Swift word search for another, so they can work on the similar tasks customized to their abilities. If you’re looking for more of a challenge, we also have a unique ‘brutal’ setting for our word searches, which creates puzzles even the most skilled searcher would struggle to solve. We also have a tool that will allow you to make your own custom word search puzzle. These can be great for gifts, parties, or even the classroom. Word search puzzles have been around for a long time, and it’s fun to be able to create your own!
Feedback for Word Search Solver
What do you think about our Word Search Solver? Was this tool useful for you, or are there features you’d like to add? We’d love to hear from you! Reach out using the ‘Contact Us’ page linked below to share your suggestions. Also be sure to check out our new wordle solver for the popular new word game!
Some word searches might seem straightforward enough that you wouldn’t need a strategy in order to solve them. Other word searches are simply… puzzling! These word search strategies will help you to solve any word search puzzle.
Some of these strategies may be familiar to you, and some may work better for you than others. We’ll focus on how to scan the puzzle itself, and how to best use the word list. Once you have an in-depth understanding of these two strategies, learn how to make your own word searches to help you practice your solving technique.
Tips for Scanning the Word Search
When it comes to solving a word search, scanning the letters provides the most effective tool for finding the hidden words. But scanning without a strategy can lead to your eyes glazing over. Here are some effective scanning tips.
Scan each row.
By simply scanning each row from left to right you’ll find a fair amount of words. You can then scan each column from top to bottom to find the vertical words. especially if the word search has no diagonal words, you’ll already be pretty far along.
Seek out strange letters.
If you are using the word list right away, seek out words that have unique letters. Words with Q, X, J, or Z may be easier to find than searching for words by their vowels.
Focus on letters that stand out to you.
Similarly, if any particular letters stand out to you, start your search with words that contain those letters. Some people believe that round letters like O, Q, and D stand out more than others.
Search for letter pairs.
If any words contain double letters, scan the word search for two letters next to each other.
Check surrounding letters.
Once you found the first letter or a key letter in a word you’re searching for, check the letters around it to see if you should keep going. For example, if you have a word with Q in it, if there’s no U next to it, then you need to keep searching.
Scan with your finger.
To keep your focus within the puzzle, run your finger along each line. This way you won’t lose your place in the puzzle.
How Important is the Word List?
Many people base their word search solving strategy on the words in the word list. However, others feel the word list is hardly necessary. The importance of the word list depends on which solving strategies work best for you, but there are a few important uses of the word list.
First, the word list helps you to verify and confirm the words you are looking for. Once you find a word, circle or highlight it, then cross it off in the word list so you don’t search for something you already found. Furthermore, occasionally a word will sneak into a word search that is not on the list. You can mark it, but if you rely solely on scanning, you’ll end up with a bunch of “discovered” words and an incomplete puzzle!
The word list also helps you to see the bigger picture. Scanning the word search will help you to find those unique words, or may work better for detail-oriented people. By using the word list, you can view the puzzle from afar and see if that word jumps out at you.
Finally, the word list is important for words that have variations. For example, if you find the word “friend” in the puzzle, the word in the word list might actually be “friendship.” You’ll need the word list to verify that you’ve found the entire word.
Now that you have some strategies for solving word searches, why not try them out? Here’s a “Hard Word Puzzle” to get you started.
If you’d like a different kind of word search to test your skills, there’s no better way to ensure you have everything you want in a word search than to make your own.
Moving on to Making Word Searches
There are lots of word searches available for you to solve, starting right here at My Word Search. After solving quite a few, you’ll want to move on to making your own. That way you’ll have control over the difficulty of your word search, and can practice the word search strategies mentioned above.
When you use the word search maker at My Word Search, make these selections for maximum difficulty:
- Select a “Gigantic” puzzle to maximize the potential for your words to hide.
- Select the maximum amount of word directions so you’ll need to scan your word search forwards, backward, up, down, and diagonally.
- Choose words for your word list with no double letters, or letter pairs, which will require you to use other strategies.
You can, of course, alter these selections to lower the difficulty as well. You can also change the font, font size, and letter spacing according to your desires. Making your word search with a theme might also alter the difficulty or offer extra enjoyment.
Once you’ve made your word search, share it with friends and family online or printed out to see if you can stump them. If you do, share this article with them so they can use the word search strategies you’ve learned!
Word searches can be a lot of fun, and by using these strategies, you’ll maximize your solving potential. You’ll also feel more confident in your ability to solve any word search puzzle. Try these strategies out today with a word search from My Word Search. If you have a strategy we didn’t list, or if you’ve made a particularly difficult puzzle to solve, share it in the comments section.
Kristen Seikaly used her artistic background, research skills, and love for the internet to launch her first blog, Operaversity. Now she uses the skills to connect teachers, parents, and game enthusiasts with Crossword Hobbyist and My Word Search. She studied music at the University of Michigan, and now lives in Philadelphia.
Fast and sharp word finder for fun and education
Crossword ModeFinds words containing given letters («w??d» — «word», «wood»). Enter a pattern. Use a question mark (?) or a dot (.) for unknown letters. |
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Xworder provides word search tools designed to help you solve and compose crosswords Xworder features: Find words if you know some of the letters that it contains («w??d» — «word», «wood»).
Find words that can be built from the given set of letters («scrabble» — «laser»,
Find words and word combinations by rearranging all letters from the given set («anagram»
A fun game of building word chains by changing one letter at a time («break — bread
Switching between the Full and Limited word lists makes it easier to find what you
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What is a Word Search Puzzle?
A word search puzzle is basically find a combination of words placed in a grid. Those set of words can be placed horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Purpose of this puzzle is to find words that are hidden in the jargon of other words.
Most of the times the words that need to be searched are written at the bottom of the puzzle.
Benefits of playing Word Search Puzzles
Hard to believe but games and puzzles play an important part in keeping up our mental health. Such puzzles stimulate the brain activities, this helping us stay focused and increased concentration.
They are helpful for kids and adults to learn and memorize new vocabulary words, historical events, popular destinations, interesting characters and so much more.
Word Search Generator Tool
You can create your own custom word search puzzles with this Word Search Puzzle Generator. You can use variety of options to create such puzzles. Follow these steps to create your custom words search puzzles:
- Input the Title of the puzzle
- Create and input your Words List
- Select the Grid Size, like 10×10, 15×15, 20×20 etc
- Select the Font Style.
- Select the Difficulty Level of Easy or Normal
- Select the theme of your choice, if you wish.
- If you wish, you select to show cell borders or not.
- Lastly, select the color of Title, Grid and Words.
- Once all the options are set, click on “Generate New”.
- Select “Show Answers” button to see the answers.
- Once generated, download the puzzles as PDF or JPG formats.
- You can also Download Preview before actually downloading the puzzles.
- To see the existing word search puzzles, click on the “Brose Gallery” button.
- Print the puzzles and start playing.
What Kind of Word Search Puzzles Should I Make?
When you are customizing a word search puzzle, it is entirely up to you to include the type of words you want to use in your word search puzzle.
To keep the players interested, make sure to use the words that are not too long in length. Try to avoid phrases that can get mixed up easily with other words.
Avoid words that require special characters, punctuation marks or numbers.
PLEASE NOTE: After you create your puzzle, proofread carefully to make sure that offensive or unintended words are not used. If you happen to come across any, you can generate another puzzle by following the steps above.