Word search content
real-time preview
saved on January 19, 2026 at 11:47 PM
Word search maker
Using the online word search maker is as easy as entering the first words that come to mind around a certain topic and let the word search generator do the rest!
The free generator creates the word search in real-time, so you can directly see the result of your input.
Pick your direction
Pick your thematic direction for your word search puzzle and give the generator instructions on how to literally 'direct' your words in the puzzle grid.
Choosing the directions is an easy way to adapt the difficulty level of your word search puzzle.
Adding a hidden solution
To give your word search puzzle an extra layer of interactivity, you can also feed the word search algorithm a hidden solution to implement while generating the puzzle grid.
Tweaking the hidden solution to fit the remaining characters in your grid is a bit of a challenge though, so embrace your inner puzzle maker!
Changing the word search template
The word search generator generates square puzzles by default, which is perfect for most use cases.
To support more eccentric puzzle builders though, a template option has been added to change the structure of your puzzle grid, ranging from 'smiley', 'diamond' to a 'star'.
Use questions to find the words
If you want to spice up the word search puzzle and make it a bit more educational/challenging, you can add descriptions to each of your word search answers.
This way, the player does not directly see the answers to look for, but only the questions/descriptions describing the answer! A cool way to experiment with alternative educational material.
Use your own list of characters
Word search puzzles consist of Latin-alphabet characters (a-z) by default. Since Puzzel.org supports many languages, it comes in handy to switch up the alphabet that is used to generate the random characters appearing in the word search grid.
The word search generator will pick characters at random from the given list and use that to fill the 'empty' spots that do not contain one of your own answers.
Force a unique version every time
To keep the word search puzzle challenging and unpredictable, you can force it to generate a new version every time you open the interactive word search player.
Finished word searches cannot be shared among students this way and it even allows you to solve the word search multiple times in a fun way.
Use countdown timer
If you would like to challenge your players a bit more, you can add a countdown timer to the mix.
The players have limited time to find all of the hidden word search puzzle words. When the time runs out, the activity will be disabled.
Word search example
Try out a sample activity to get a feel for how an activity of this type works, how it looks.
This sample activity is very basic and only illustrates the most core features, but it will help you get a better understanding of what the activity type can do for you.