Word-search puzzles arrange letters in a square grid so that target words appear horizontally, vertically, or diagonally while unused spaces are filled with random characters. The activity tests pattern-recognition skills, aids vocabulary revision, and provides a low-barrier pastime for classrooms, language learners, or marketing campaigns that hide brand terms inside engaging artwork.
Creating such grids manually grows unwieldy once word counts rise, because each entry must intersect without overlap, respect boundaries, and leave few isolated gaps. Automated generators handle this combinatorial search by trying multiple starting cells, directions, and random seeds until every word fits, then populating remaining cells with filler letters to achieve a clean, uniformly distributed matrix.
Use this tool to build a themed puzzle for lesson plans, newsletters, corporate ice-breakers, or social-media giveaways by pasting your word list, fine-tuning grid size, colours, and placement rules, then exporting a print-ready PDF or sharable PNG in seconds, ready for participants of all ages to search.
Outcomes are generated randomly and hold no monetary value.
The generator treats the grid as a discrete two-dimensional lattice. Each word is placed by sampling a start cell and a direction vector from the allowed set, verifying that every subsequent letter either matches an existing character or occupies an empty cell. A lightweight pseudo-random sequence with multiplicative congruence ensures deterministic output when the same seed and options are reused. Unclaimed cells are filled with uniformly random uppercase letters to maintain visual density.
Where k is the number of grid cells occupied by target words and N is the grid size.
| Symbol | Meaning | Unit | Typical Range | Sensitivity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
N | Grid dimension | cells | 5 – 25 | High |
W | Word length | letters | 3 – 15 | Medium |
S | Seed value | integer | 1 – 231 − 2 | Low |
D | Direction vector | — | (0,1) … (−1,−1) | Medium |
P | Filled percentage | % | 0 – 100 | High |
The tool reports a 34 % fill rate and flags the puzzle as balanced. Remaining 66 blanks are automatically filled from a uniform alphabet distribution, ensuring no linguistic bias.
N are silently ignored surprise.The search runs in worst-case O(W · N² · A), where A is the attempt cap. Typical puzzles complete in under 20 ms on modern devices. All processing occurs client-side, and exports leverage a lightweight rendering layer that converts the DOM region to PDF or PNG without server interaction.
Follow this flow to craft and download a custom puzzle.
No. All processing happens in your browser and nothing is transmitted to any server.
Set a unique seed value before clicking Generate. Using the identical seed and options later recreates the exact grid.
Yes. Uncheck the respective switches in Advanced Options to restrict placement directions.
The tool supports 25 × 25 cells. Larger sizes increase file weight and may not print clearly on A4 paper.
If a word exceeds the grid dimension or conflicts with existing placements after 500 attempts, it is skipped to keep generation time reasonable.