Configuring a Word Search
Set up a word search's word list, points, placement rules, and published grid in a roomy Configure dialog, opened right from the canvas.
A word search hides a list of words in a grid of letters for learners to find. Its setup — the word list, how many points each word is worth, the placement rules, and the puzzle layout — lives in a dedicated Configure dialog with room to work, instead of being squeezed into the narrow right sidebar.
Opening the Configure dialog
Select a word search on the canvas. A floating ⚙ Configure button appears just above it.
Click ⚙ Configure to open the dialog. Alongside the settings you'll see a live preview of the puzzle, so you can see the grid your learners will get while you edit (you can't see the puzzle itself behind the dialog). The preview shows the published grid — the exact deterministic layout that gets saved — not a different random layout each time you look. From top to bottom the dialog has:
- Scoring — whether the puzzle contributes to the score. The Scoring switch and Group work the same for every scorable widget, but a word search has no Points field here: its points come from the word list.
- Content — the word list, the placement and display options, and the puzzle layout.
Building the word list
Each word has its own text box and a Points box for how much finding it is worth. Use:
- Add word to add another word to the puzzle.
- The ↑ / ↓ arrows to reorder a word.
- The trash icon to remove a word.
Words are normalized to letters before they're placed — accents, digits, and punctuation are stripped, and each word needs at least two letters once normalized. If a word is too short or a duplicate, the dialog tells you inline so you can fix it. A too-short word is left out of the puzzle entirely; a duplicate is merged into the first copy, which carries both words' points.
The Total points readout sums the points of every word in the puzzle — that's the puzzle's full value. Words left out of the puzzle don't count. Choose how those points are earned with Scoring mode:
- Per word credits each found word's points individually.
- Full completion credits the full total only once every word is found.
Placement and display options
- Allow diagonals and Allow backwards widen where words can be placed, making the puzzle harder.
- Show word list displays the list of words to find in a fixed column beside the grid. The studio canvas draws that column as well, so you can see how much room the grid actually has.
- Allow 'Reveal answers' button gives learners a button, under the grid, to reveal any words they haven't found. The canvas keeps that row clear too — what you lay out is what learners see.
- Extra rows / cols pads the auto-sized grid with extra filler letters (0–20) to increase difficulty.
- Randomize placement per student generates a fresh layout for every learner at runtime — useful for anti-collaboration and replay practice. Even with this on, the studio preview and canvas keep showing the published layout so you can author against a stable puzzle.
Reshuffling the layout
The puzzle layout is deterministic: the same words and options always produce the same grid, and that grid is what gets published. If you don't like a particular arrangement, click Shuffle to generate a new layout for the same words and options. The new layout is re-cached and shown in the preview immediately.
Saving your changes
Nothing is committed until you click Save. Cancel (or pressing Esc, or clicking outside) discards your edits — if you have unsaved changes you'll be asked to confirm first.
The sidebar still holds the word search's Style & Layout (colors, letter size, corner radius, and the gap between cells), behavior, visibility, and position. Cell size follows the widget's size: resize the widget on the canvas to make cells bigger or smaller. Only the word list, generation options, and scoring moved into the Configure dialog.
For the runtime behavior of the puzzle itself, see the Word Search Widget.