Playing With a Keyboard, Touch, or Larger Text

You can play every word search on this site with a mouse, a finger, or a keyboard alone. Drag across a word, or tap its first letter and then its last letter, or use the arrow keys and press Enter at each end. Zoom buttons make the squares bigger, large boards scroll inside their own frame, and screen readers announce each square and every word you find. This guide covers each method in detail.

With a mouse

Drag: press on the first letter of a word, drag to the last letter, and let go. The selection snaps to the nearest straight line — a row, a column or a 45° diagonal — so you don’t need a perfectly steady hand.

Click, click: click the first letter (it gets an outline), then click the last letter. This works well for long words and for anyone who finds dragging tiring.

You can select a word from either end. Even on Easy, where words are placed left to right, selecting from the last letter back to the first still counts.

With touch (phones and tablets)

The same two methods work with a finger:

• Drag along the word.
• Tap, tap: tap the first letter, then the last letter. Tap the first letter again to cancel.

The board captures touches only while you’re selecting, so the rest of the page still scrolls normally with a swipe outside the board, and pinch-to-zoom still works.

Big boards on small screens

A 20×20 grid doesn’t fit a phone at a comfortable size. Rather than shrink the letters to the point of squinting, the board keeps every square at least 24 pixels and scrolls inside its own frame. A button under the board switches between:

• Selecting words — touches select letters (the default), and
• Moving board — touches scroll the board so you can reach the other side.

If you play mostly on a phone, a smaller grid (up to about 15×15) gives the most relaxed experience. In the word search maker, you choose the size.

With a keyboard

The board works entirely from the keyboard, following standard grid conventions:

Key	Action
Tab	Move into the board (one stop — not one per letter)
Arrow keys	Move one square
Home / End	Jump to the start / end of the row
Page Up / Page Down	Jump to the top / bottom row
Ctrl + Home / End	Jump to the first / last square
Enter or Space	Mark the first letter; press again on the last letter to select
Escape	Cancel the current selection
Tab (again)	Leave the board for the controls

While a selection is in progress, moving the cursor previews the line, as long as it’s straight. If you press Enter on a square that isn’t in line with the first, you’ll hear and see a gentle “not a straight line” message; your progress is never affected.

All the controls — Hint, Pause, Restart, Reveal, zoom, timer and sound — are ordinary buttons you can reach with Tab.

With a screen reader

The board is built as an accessible grid:

• Each square announces its row, column and letter (“Row 3, column 5, K”) and whether it’s part of a found word.
• Starting a selection announces the start square. Completing one announces the result: “Found OCEAN. 4 of 12 found,” or that the letters aren’t one of the words.
• The word list marks each word as found or not found yet in text, not only by color or strikethrough.
• Progress (“4 of 12 found”) appears above the board.

Announcements are deliberately brief — the site doesn’t read out the whole grid every time you move. Large grids are still slow to explore by ear; a 10×10 or 12×12 puzzle is far more pleasant with a screen reader. Our accessibility statement lists known limitations.

Seeing the board comfortably

Zoom. Under the board, the minus and plus buttons change the square size from 60% to 200%; the middle button resets to 100%. Your choice is remembered on this device.

Browser zoom and text size. Ctrl/Cmd + plus, or your phone’s text-size setting, enlarges everything. The page reflows so nothing is cut off, even at 200%.

Dark mode. In the footer, choose Light, Dark or System. Found words show as a bright highlighter band with dark letters, so they stay clear in either mode. Printed sheets are always black on white.

Reduced motion. If your device asks for reduced motion, non-essential animation is switched off.

Found words are marked three ways at once: a colored band on the grid, a check box in the list, and a line through the word. You never need to distinguish colors to follow your progress.

Large print on paper

On paper, choose Large print in Print & PDF. The PDF guarantees grid letters of at least 18 points and a 16-point word list when printed at 100%. Grids up to 18×18 fit on US Letter and 17×17 on A4. The large print guide and readable grid and font sizes explain the details.

The selection bubble

Above the board, a small bubble shows the letters you’re selecting as you drag or move the keyboard cursor. It’s an easy way to check a candidate before letting go: if the bubble says ORANG and you’re after ORANGE, keep going one more square. When you finish a selection, the bubble shows the result — the word you found, or that those letters aren’t on the list.

Full screen

The full-screen button in the toolbar fills the screen with the game and enlarges the squares, which helps on laptops and tablets. Press it again, or press Escape, to return. Some phones — iPhones in particular — don’t allow web pages to go full screen; there, rotating the phone or zooming the board works well instead.

Menus in your language

The globe button at the top of every page shows the menus, buttons and messages in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian or Arabic. The puzzle words stay in English because the grid uses the letters A–Z. Your choice is remembered on this device.

Sound and vibration

Sound effects are off by default and can be turned on from the toolbar: a soft tone when you find a word and a short melody when you finish. On devices that support it, finishing a puzzle also gives a brief vibration. Neither is needed to play, and both respect your device’s settings.

When touch doesn’t behave as expected

• The page scrolls instead of selecting. The board may be in moving mode. Switch the hand button back to selecting.
• The selection jumps to a different line. Selections snap to the nearest straight line. Drag a little further along the word and the line settles.
• A tap seems to do nothing. You may have an earlier first-letter tap waiting. Tap the same letter again to cancel, then start over.
• Letters are too small to hit. Use the zoom buttons, or choose a smaller grid when making a puzzle.

Switching devices mid-puzzle

Progress is stored on the device where you play. If you start on a phone and want to finish on a laptop, use Saved to export a backup and import it on the other device, or simply restart the puzzle there; the grid will be the same.

Hints, pauses and timers

• Hint marks the first letter of one word you haven’t found yet with a dashed circle. Hints are counted and shown when you finish.
• Pause hides the board and stops the timer until you choose Resume.
• Timer is off by default. When it’s on, it only counts while the puzzle is visible and unpaused, so switching tabs doesn’t cost you time.
• Sound is off by default and never needed to play.

Finishing a puzzle

When the last word is found, a short celebration plays and a summary card shows your time and the number of hints used. From there you can view the solved board, play the puzzle again or move on to another puzzle. If you chose Reveal instead, the board shows every word and the attempt is marked as revealed rather than solved.

If anything about playing doesn’t work for you, the contact page is the best way to tell us; accessibility reports get priority.

Whatever way you play, the rules are the same: every word is a straight line, each appears exactly once, and you can select it from either end.

Your progress is saved

Progress is saved in your browser as you play — found words, hints and time — and restored when you come back to the same puzzle on the same device. It doesn’t sync across devices; export a backup from Saved if you want to move it.

Ready to try? Play the daily word search, or browse puzzles by theme.