WordSearch Instructions

There are 3 versions of WordSearch puzzles at this site: basic, medium, and hard. Features common to all 3 versions are:

     1. Each time you refresh the browser, a new puzzle appears (same words, different locations in the grid).

     2. There are 2 ways to identify ("circle") words you find in the grid:

          a. Click on a letter adjacent to the first or last letter of the word (but not in the word) and move the mouse over the remaining letters. When a word has been properly identified in this manner, the background will change from yellow to a shade of grey. The word in the list will change colors to purple.

          b. Or, double click on the first or last letter of the word (but not in the word). The first double click will make the background orange, the second will make the background grey if the word has been properly identified in this manner.The word in the list will change colors to purple.

          c. If you get stuck, you can click on the difficult word in the list and its location in the grid will be highlighted. Click again to remove the highlight. You can "circle" the word at any time.

          d. If the puzzle should become cluttered with yellow and/or orange boxes, just click the "Clean" button.

          e. You can click on the "Background" button to bring up information (most often links) that may be helpful particularly with the medium and hard versions of the puzzles.

     3. Sometimes the words to find are listed alphabetically below the grid, and sometimes they are the italicized words contained within text, again below the grid.

     4. Sometimes the 'words' to find are not actually words, but could be mathematical symbols, chemical formulas, or a variety of other items.

Now for the differences among the 3 versions:

     1. Basic version:

          a. The words (or other items) to be found are provided under the grid.

          b. If you get stuck, you can click on the difficult word (or other item) in the list and its location in the grid will be highlighted. Click again to remove the highlight. You can "circle" the word (or other item) at any time.

     2. Medium version:

          a. The words (or other items) to be found are not provided under the grid.

          b. If you get stuck, you can click on one of the grey boxes located under the grid once. This will bring up the associated word (or other item) in the grey box for you to locate in the grid.

          c. For further help, you can click on the same grey box, now with the word (or other item) to locate displayed, and this will show the location of the word (or other item) in the grid.

          d. You can "circle" the word (or other item) at any time.

     3. Hard version:

          a. The words (or other items) to be found are not provided under the grid.

          b. Clicking on one of the grey boxes under the grid will do nothing (no help for you).

          c. The only way to display the associated word (or other item) in its respective grey box is to identify ("circle") the word (or other item) in the grid.

          d. This is where the background information can come in handy.