For EnigMarch 2026, we asked puzzle designers to walk us through the creation of a puzzle of their choice. Read on for a tutorial by EnigMarch organizer Aiden Blackwood on how to use online tools to create a puzzly word search.

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This article specifically focuses on the way to make a leftover letters word search, which is a word search where the letters not crossed out spell out a hidden word or sentence. First, I’ll give you some general tips, and then I’ll give you the pros and cons of a few websites that will do the hard work for you.

General Tips

• These word search creators work best if you give them more words than the size of the word search needs. If you have a size of word search in mind, I recommend a list that has at least 1.5 times the amount of letters in it. So if you would like a 10×10 word search, I recommend at least 150 letters in all your words combined.
• You could also adapt the size of your word search to the word list. 
• Play around with the size of the grid, going bigger until there’s no longer enough words for the grid.
• If you make your hidden word or sentence too short, it may be hard or impossible for the website to make the word search. A good minimum is the amount of rows or columns.
• You’re likely to have words you definitely want in the search. Depending on the tool you’re using, you may need to reload a few times to get the word search you would like, if you’re not setting by hand.

Websites

I went through a bunch of word search websites, and these are the ones I found that help you make a word search with leftover letters.

1. Discovery Education Puzzlemaker

https://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/hidden-message

Pros:

• An HTML version to easily copy and paste the word search itself into an editing program of your choice, or an image to paste somewhere
• Easy to copy-paste a word list from somewhere else
• Option to show the solution to double-check everything is to your liking
• Filters out curse/bad words

Cons:

• You can’t see the solution in the HTML version, and you can’t change from the solution to the HTML from the same grid (it will reload and give you a different one)
• It will add random letters at the end of the hidden sentence sometimes. You need to check the solution to make sure it doesn’t do this
• Doesn’t let you pick the directions the words go in

2. ApolloPuzzles

https://www.apollopuzzles.com/wordsearch/make

Pros:

• Easy to copy-paste a word list
• Some options to choose which way the words go
• Ability to scramble the message
• Easily switch between seeing or hiding solution

Cons:

• To be able to copy the grid, you need to click “print,” select “save to pdf,” open said pdf and then copy the grid

3. Puzzel.org

https://puzzel.org/en/wordseeker/build?menu=content

This has paid and free tiers; here I am focusing on the free tier.

Pros:

• Live view and live updating
• Option to turn any direction on or off
• Online solving
• Copy-paste the grid in editing software

Cons:

• Need to fill the words in one by one
• Lot of options behind a paywall
• Limited amount of word searches to make without an account
• Online solving has limits without a paid account

Editing Your Word Search

Once you’ve made the word search, you may want to change some things about it. Maybe your puzzle has crossword-style clues that have to be solved to find the word, or maybe it has anagrams. Image editing programs like GIMP (https://www.gimp.org/) will work great, but spreadsheets can get you far as well.

A Final Note

If you’re looking for more options and are willing to pay for it, I personally use Crossword Compiler and I am very happy with it (a lot of settings, a good algorithm for filling the grid and a lot of export options), but it isn’t cheap. And of course, I can’t make a whole post about word searches without leaving you with one.