Try it First - There is a "Lite" version of this software that you can download and use for free before you buy it. (Click here for free download link)

Fully Featured - The Full version has all the features you need to make easy-hard, small-large, many-shaped puzzles. (Click here for pricing and download link)

Pro Upgrade - There is an in-app option to upgrade to the Pro version, and you immediately get:

• Bulk-Builder automation, letting you instantly and automatically generate up to 100 puzzles at a time, great for quickly publishing your own puzzle books.
• Puzzles can grow up to 80x80 dimensions.
• User-defined-shape designer, letting you create any puzzle shape you want. Your shapes can be quickly exported/imported by other Pro users.
• Alpha-numeric shapes (in a number of different fonts.)
• Optionally export a text file that holds your word list sorted and listed different ways for easy importing into books
• Export an "ESP File" (JSON) that captures the puzzle/solution in a computer-readable way, so you can create book-publishing workflows, or to pour puzzles into your own interactive web or native computer games

Myriad Shapes and Sizes

You can choose from many built-in puzzle shapes, and the puzzles can range in size from as small as 4 letters across and down, all the way up to 50 by 50 letters.

Teaching Language Vocabulary/ESL

Whirlwind WordSearch creates engaging word search puzzles from your own lists of words... in many different languages!

Tough Love

It is not just a pretty puzzle though, underneath is a powerful puzzle-generator. You can instantly change the "Difficulty to Solve" setting to create easy, difficult, or diabolical puzzles. Or switch to Advanced Difficulty mode, and fine-tune the puzzle exactly the way you want.

Unlimited Publishing!

You can export high-quality puzzle and answer images for the web, or into your own word processor for publishing in books, newsletters, social media/blogs, or classroom handouts. The puzzles are yours to publish and sell, no commercial licensing required.

Any randomly-created "naughty words" are automatically detected and removed (in all supported languages), offering classroom-safe puzzles.

Magic Macros

Building a new puzzle every month? Let Whirlwind WordSearch automatically add the name of the month into your puzzle title for you! Also add day-of-week, year, puzzle shape and size, and more.

Lights Out

Dark Mode is easy on the eyes.

Features Galore

Hide secret messages within the puzzle, prompt with clues instead of the words, Instant Naughty-word elimination in all languages, and so much more...

All of this for one price... no monthly fees, no extra upgrade costs. Ever.

Pro Bulk-Builder Blitz

With the Pro upgrade, you can bulk-build up to 100 puzzles at a time from your own large word lists, choose from even more shapes, or even design your own shape and turn it into a puzzle. You can also export the entire puzzle and answer information in computer-readable "ESP File" format for importing into your professional publishing workflow, or into your own game engines for interactive puzzle-play!

• Added new language support... Icelandic! Halló Björk!
• Added the Secret Message prompts to the bottom of the exported files, if you choose to display them.
• Pro: You can now export to a new "ESP File" (JSON) that captures all the puzzle/answer information in a computer-readable way. You can use this to create book-publishing workflows, or to pour puzzles into your own interactive web or native computer games. You can find it when exporting your files as the "and ESP File" checkbox. There is an "ESP File Guide" document found in the HELP menu.
• Added the author/copyright text field info into your exported SVG files... they will be stamped into the header comment of your files.
• Renamed the IPUZ-specific Application-Settings tab "IPUZ EXPORT" to a more all-encompassing "AUTHOR INFO", because the author/copyright fields you enter here are now being used in multiple export file formats (IPUZ, ESP, SVG, text).
• You can now turn off/on tooltips on the main window and menu bar, with a new button under the App Settings window's "Appearance" tab.
• Added command-keys to cover all the Edit:Copy-As commands, for better disabilities-support.
• Added the option to add little indicator arrows with each word in your printed word list as an extra hint of where to look, see the Layout:Word List:What to Display... area. (Thanks Thomas!)
• Added a way to copy an image of the word-directions used as a graphic arrow-image for pasting into your word processor. Also see the explanation in the user guide on page 95, "Word Direction Arrows as Image" (Thanks Thomas!)
• Finished rolling the optional woodgrain background into the export and bulk-builder windows.
• Big User Guide clarification/updates to the Bulk Builder section 4.30, and to the Title section 5.3, to better explain how to add an automatic puzzle counter to the title of the exported or bulk-built puzzles (Thanks JamesR!)
• BugFix: The broken SEARCH capability in the User Guide and Bulk Builder Guide windows (under the Help menu) is now fixed!

5.2.1 - June/Late 2025

• BugFix_25062401: Whirlwind no longer avoids placing words along top and bottom few rows... now words are more evenly distributed again and can stab into secret messages at the top or bottom of the puzzle. (Thanks KevinI & JenO).

5.2.0 - June/Early 2025

• Added the ability to show a word in the word list but NOT put in the puzzle, for a "Find the Missing Word" style game (IanM)
• Completely re-designed the "Tip of the Day" window to be much prettier, and with helpful graphics! Take a look by pressing (command)-(option)-T.
• User Tips window now has a checkbox at the bottom to let you directly turn ON or OFF the auto-show-tips (which you can also do in the Application Settings window, but that is harder for people to find. (Thanks JamesR.)
• Added a slider (Under Printing:Answer tabs) to fine-adjust the width of the answer oval (thanks IanM and JenO)
• Renamed the Application Settings:Extras feature to Puzzle Aspect Ratio.
• Added more clarification in the Intro Screen window top text to describe where to find the user guide. (Thanks JamesR)
• Relative Font size for letters can now grow to 2x (instead of 1.5x), allowing smaller fonts to take up a larger area. (Thanks IanM)
• BugFix: When re-opening your saved documents, the colors you chose now are remembered exactly and don't "slowly drift" toward other colors. This change unfortunately will RESET your prior saved document colors to defaults this one upgrade-time, and you will need to re-choose any custom colors and save the updated document. After that it will forever remember the proper color. (Thanks IanM)
• BugFix: Building a puzzle with shorter words would sometimes create a random duplicate of that word that it would not find and eliminate (Thanks DeanF)
• BugFix: Made the preview window more squishable, so that the Full-screen view mode works properly and does not hide the bottom buttons off the screen.
• BugFix: Fixed the top-bottom-avoidance-detection logic so small puzzles (less than 8 high) high don't avoid top/bottom
• BugFix: After export# is set to some # and saved as default, future launches of Whirlwind will correctly pre-set the export counter to that number.

5.1.2 - May 2025

• Clues were hard to find! So I changed the Word List formatting popup menu ("Print the word list as:") into a more understandable set of radio buttons instead. (Thanks Thomas!)
• Pro: When using the Bulk Builder's "Word List Group" feature, added the option to either shuffle the order of the groups for the puzzles, or leave the group order as-is. There is a new checkbox in the Bulk Builder window just under the Bulk Word Lists text area called "Shuffle the build order of your word list groups". See the "Bulk Builder Guide" on page 3, under "2. Multiple Word Groups", and the regular user guide, page 46 for new text. (Thanks Dean!)
• Even more accessibility fixes for groups of controls.
• BugFix: When creating word lists with clues, if you forget to add a clue to a word, it once again gives you a helpful error alert telling you that you missed one. (Thanks Thomas!)
• BugFix: Fixed a long-standing formatting bug in ipuz exports for the "origin" tag.

5.1.1 - May 2025

• Made the progress window slightly transparent so we can see the preview underneath.
• Pro: Updated Bulk-Builder Guide with more accurate notes on puzzle-macros.
• BugFix: Updated SVG export files and the "Application Settings:SVG" pane with a new "Add Fall-back fonts" checkbox, to allow finer handling of SVG exports when you are then importing into InDesign or Affinity and are going to immediately convert them to PDF. See Pg. 91 of the User Guide for more information.
• BugFix: The "Layout:WordList:Left Indent Adjustment" slider is now working correctly again.
• BugFix: The application "Settings" dialog now always refers to items in the frontmost document window, in case you have opened multiple windows (e.g. the SVG font example text display.)
• BugFix: Pro: The Shape Editor window is now size-adjustable, to fit on smaller laptop screens (740 height), and you can drag its edges to make it fit bigger screens (Thanks DaveR!)

5.1.0 - April 2025

• New Feature: Added helpful "user tips" to the software, which will automatically pop up once a week. You can turn off the user tips from the Settings dialog, and/or step through them manually under the "Next User Tip" menu item under the Help menu. Let me know if you have suggestions for these!
• New Feature: The PRO-only feature of optionally adding Title text to exported files is now available in the regular FULL product too.
• Improved behavior of Max-Optionals - Enhanced behavior of Max-Optionals: Now, if you enable All-Words-Optional and specify a Max-Optional-Words value, Whirlwind will randomly select that many words from your entire word list whenever you construct a puzzle, instead of consistently choosing the top N words from the list. Additionally, if it’s unable to fit even that many words, it will now begin removing words and rebuilding until it succeeds, rather than simply failing. I’ve attempted to explain this nuanced behavior in the user guide on page 70.
• When using the Rect Tall/Wide shapes, the Short Side Size slider's maximum value will now always shrink to the size of whatever the current puzzle size slider is. (UserGuide section 5.4)
• Whirlwind now features many magic "$$Puzzle Macros" that can be used in the Title or Subtitle or Secret Message text fields. See the new User Guide section "Use Auto-Updating Puzzle Macros".
• LITE: New Feature: Now allows turning on shape-outline or inner gridlines, was a Full-Only feature.
• Added an EXTRAS tab in the Settings dialog to allow fine-tuning of the puzzle grid's width, in case you want it not quite 1:1 square. (thanks StephenK)
• Better word overlap method which now prefers overlapping words near their middles, instead of near their ends.
• Open Oval highlight loops on solutions are shrunk just a little more, so they no longer overlap each other messily when on adjacent diagonals (Thanks again JenO)
• Allow a #-of-words-max value option when allowing all-words-optional, so it uses no more than that number of optional words in puzzle (Thanks GeorgeP)
• Puzzles will now try really hard to AVOID laying horizontal words along the very top or bottom row(s) of a puzzle. After the 70% mark, this rule is relaxed and words are allowed to wind up on the very top or bottom row of the puzzle. (Thanks GeorgeP)
• MOVED the "Allow embedded sub-words in word list" control from the ADVANCED difficulty tab to the more appropriate Words/Word list tab. Updated the user guide.
• Added a "Save to PDF file" button on the user guide window for opening with other PDF viewers and on other devices. (Thanks JenO)
• Added a SEARCH field at the top of the user guide window for simple searching of words or phrases (Thanks JamesR.)
• Moderately big internal changes to how the puzzles lay out the words (all prior saved puzzles will have to be rebuilt now.) Some puzzles will build faster, some slower, some tight puzzles that never built before will now build successfully, and hopefully all will have better looking word distribution. See revised BASIC difficulty behavior on page 73, and the ADVANCED difficulty footnote on page 74.
• Added a "View" menu to allow for full-screen toggling of the window.
• You can now optionally draw a colored outline or "stroke" around the puzzle letters, which lets you design "hollow letters", so you can now create those popular "color in the letters" word search puzzles. See the user guide, new section 4.25, and look under the Layout/Letters tabs for the new checkbox "Draw letter outlines in color"!
• Answer highlight ovals are now drawn underneath all letters in answer key, so that non-answer letters are on top of the ovals if they overlap.
• In text grids that are copied via the Edit menu, or exported in the new tab/csv text formats, the answer grid now uses a space instead of '+' for placeholder spots inside puzzle but not part of words.
• Pro: If the Bulk-Builder gets an error when you try to load your words, it now adds a little text to remind you to read the Bulk-Builder Guide for formatting help (Thanks JenO)
• Pro: Bulk Exported files will now add the Bulk Design/Variation after the export counter in the file name.
• Pro: Exported "Info" text file is now named with a ".json" file extension, and exported "Word List" text file is named with a ".ini" extension.
• Pro: Two new export options added, "Text (comma separated)" with a ".csv" file extension, and "Text (tab separated)" with a ".txt" file extension. Useful for automating import into other software that expects CSV or tab-delimited tables.
• Renamed and updated descriptions for menu items "Save Document Settings as Defaults" and "Reset Document Settings to Defaults" so they more accurately describe what they do.
• User Guide: Improved the section "Export" to better explain copy/paste of text into spreadsheets or into Canva.
• SVG export now correctly matches the outline thickness no matter what image pixel size you export to.
• Modest increase in the allowed length of title and subtitle text.
• Added a new (short) User Guide section 4.16, describing how to use Apple Intelligence to auto-add word lists for you.
• BugFix_25030301 - You can once again create rectangular puzzles under 10 characters in width. Just choose one of the Rectangle shapes first, then you can reduce the puzzle size below 10. (StephenK)
• BugFix: Copying text from Photoshop and pasting it into your word list now works without giving an error about bad (invisible) characters in your word list. Why does Photoshop sprinkle ETX characters into the text? (Thanks SandraR!)
• BugFix_25012601: Now correctly fixed: setting the Advanced-difficulty overlap to "OVERLAP ALL" will now show an error if it could not overlap all (GeorgeP & ThomasS)
• BugFix_25020601: Stats table had an incorrect value for total words, so I fixed it and changed wording to "# Word List Words Total" and "# Word List Words Shown" in case some optional words were dropped. Updated user guide description too.
• BugFix: Number puzzles no longer have any "naughty words" that it will check against and give strange errors about when building puzzles (Thanks JenO)
• BugFix_25012701: If you have a large number of words, all marked optional, Whirlwind will now work harder to keep as many optional words as possible to fill the puzzle, instead of just removing most of the optional words. (Thanks GeorgeP.)
• BugFix: Word lists can now also be pasted in as tab-delimited lists, and words will be separated correctly. (Thanks MarkO)
• BugFix: SVG Fancy Export will now display the subtitle if one exists.
• BugFix: SVG Fancy Export will now auto-shrink the title or subtitle font size if the text gets too long.
• BugFix: Preview area no longer does an annoying alternating slight resizing on every build/redraw.
• Pro BugFix: If you create a word-pool with its "wordsperpuzzle" parameter set to a number larger than the actual number of words you supply, it will no longer give an obscure error, but will create puzzles with as many words as you have.
• BugFix: The exported ipuz file now correctly handles double-quotes in your puzzle title, subtitle, or secret message text.
• BugFix: The exported "_Inf.txt" file (which is JSON formatted) now correctly handles double-quotes in your puzzle title, subtitle, or secret message text, and embedded tabs in the puzzle/answer text.
• Bugfix_2409042: After using the Pro Bulk-Builder "#language" command, Whirlwind will correctly display that language on the main window "Alphabets/Numbers" popup.
• BugFix: Pro - Corrected the "language" command in the example section of the Bulk Build guide.
• BugFix: Changing the Letter font now also updates the Alphabet/Numbers example text in the new font.

5.0.2 - October 2024

• Added ability to specify how many columns to use in the word list under the puzzle (or allow the original auto-calculate way.) (Thank you Thomas and April!)
• Lite&Full: Added option to Center the word list words. This works for both word columns or comma separated words.
• Added option to add a left-edge indent to the word list. This works for both word columns or comma separated words.
• Pro: The exported Info and Word List text files now add info lines that list the word clues if there.
• BugFix: Some SVG export fixes related to better formatting/sizing of the word list text under the puzzle.
• BugFix: Rectangle shapes can now be any even or odd width (i.e., the rectangle "Short Side Size" slider now works properly.) [Bugfix_2410081] (Thanks Zolymar)
• BugFix: When choosing to display word list as "Word Clues", the Answer page once again displays clues WITH their words in the word list [Bugfix_2410112]

5.0.1 - October 2024

• BugFix: When turning OFF gridlines, they are now completely suppressed when exporting as SVG (they were still being drawn as zero-width lines) (Thanks SimonD!)
• BugFix: Puzzles that are rectangle shaped now upgrade to 5.0 rectangles properly instead of reverting to square shapes (Thanks OrsonT!)
• BugFix: "Rectangle Size" slider has been properly renamed "Short Side Size" to match the user guide reference.

5.0.0 - September 2024

• Lite: Now allows fine-tuning the vertical letter adjustment inside puzzle grid.
• The User Interface has been heavily re-arranged to be better organized, with fewer things on each tabbed pane, but more and deeper tabs.
• Renamed the "Alphabet" tab to "Alphabets/Numbers" to make it easier to find where to set up a NUMBERS word-search puzzle (Thanks ElizaW!)
• Added Japanese/Chinese numbers to list of "alphabet" styles.
• Added the subtitle and word list to the Preview area.
• All Font-chooser popup-menus now display the list of fonts *in* the font itself for WYSIWYG choosing.
• The "Create" button has been renamed "Build", and an ACTION menu has been added to hold the main Build/Stop/Bulk-Build/Shape-Designer actions.
• Word directions are now more evenly distributed, so if you have 10 words, and 2 allowed directions, it will try very hard to lay 5 words out in EACH of those 2 directions. You can see the distribution by looking at the Stats table to see how many words were laid down in each direction. (Thanks Jen!)
• Re-worked the user interface for Letter Font size adjustment to better explain "automatic" versus "fixed" font point size (Thanks Syl!)
• Building "tight" puzzles (small puzzles with very few remaining empty spaces) will now succeed more often, where they would always fail before.
• Added "Filename Layout" popup menu to the EXPORT window, allowing you to re-arrange the order of the exported filename components.
• Font size sliders are now continuous and do not stop on the tick marks (thanks Jen!)
• Pro: Export can optionally write an INFO file (_inf.txt) as a JSON formatted text file (human readable, but also importable to other software.) It can also write a WORDLIST file too, which will list all the words that were used in the puzzle, all the hidden words, and a listing of the words broken out by word-length (Marina!) AND by direction placed in the puzzle (Clare!)
• Re-Added IPUZ export format back into export options (Thanks Jesse & Dave!)
• Added the "Reset Settings to Defaults" menu function to the software, and updated the user guide.
• Under the "Secret Message" tab, added a "Copy Secret Message as Template" button to copy to clipboard.
• During Export, if you switch to SVG file format, the "Export Size" prompt will change to display specific image size for SVG (which is normally 96 DPI.)
• BugFix: Lite: The tabs in the App Settings dialog that are only supported in the Full version are now removed in the Lite version, leaving only the "Appearance" tab.
• BugFix: The Answer Key looks and works better: Hidden word letters and Secret Message letters correctly hide, dim, show as you change the Print Answer display settings, an
d the Answer loops now are drawn on TOP of the grid and non-answer fill-letters.
• BugFix: Word list in the PREVIEW display now displays in proper case.
• BugFix: Fixed a rare occasional crash that would happen when making very large (40x40 or bigger) word search puzzles.
• BugFix: App Settings, IPUZ and SVG tabs are renamed to "IPUZ Export" and "SVG Export".
• BugFix: Grid line size and Answer Highlight loop drawing is changed slightly, now adjusts RELATIVE to puzzle size (making it export-resolution-independent.)
• BugFix: When you toggle "Remove all diacriticals from letters" in the layout:letters tab, the puzzle now resets, since you are changing what letters to use.
• BugFix: FINALLY fixed Edit:Undo/Redo menu functions for text fields, so you can properly undo/redo typing in your word lists!
• BugFix: Opening and then Editing your document and then choosing FILE:CLOSE or hitting the window's red "close" dot will now prompt to let you first save your changes, instead of closing and discarding the changes.
• BugFix: Now more often succeeds building smaller tight puzzles with almost no free space, by trying harder (taking longer) if it needs to.
• BugFix: SVG export now supports Title justification of LEFT and CENTER (but not RIGHT.)
• BugFix: SVG export will now draw the optional separator lines between title, puzzle, and word list if you enable it under the Printing:Page Layout tab.
• BugFix: SVG export now properly shows/hides hidden words in the answer key based on the "show hidden" checkboxes.
• BugFix: SVG Export now supports "Fancy Mode" with title and word list, correctly sizes line widths, and does better group layering.
• BugFix: SVG grids/outlines now correctly align to the letters and floor (used to be slightly compressed.)
• BugFix: Turning ON or OFF the "show the word list" checkboxes on the Printing Puzzle or Answer pages now correctly turns them on/off, also affects the EXPORTED (Fancy Mode) output.
• BugFix: Word List text now uses the Puzzle Letter font color, not the Title Text font color! It has been (broken) that way for years!
• BugFix: Turning OFF "Printing:Print Word List on Answer Page" also hides it from Solution Preview window. (Thanks JamesR)
• BugFix: Secret Message template "underscores" are narrower so they don't merge together into one long line for a word, but now better show each letter position.
• BugFix: "Copy Formatted Word List" button under the word list is now dimmed until a puzzle is created (so it knows which optional words got placed, etc.)
• BugFix: Tapping the "# optional words" dialog now lists the words as comma-separated instead of newline separated, in case there are dozens of words omitted.
• BugFix: When a large number of words are optional and omitted from the word list, the # of columns of words under the puzzle is now re-calculated to correctly balance (and re-center) the word list.

4.6.6 - July 2023

• BugFix: PNG exported files are now transparent outside the puzzle again.

4.6.5 - July 2023

• This update will run on any Macintosh (Intel or Apple Silicon) running 10.14 or newer.
• Added Rainbow-Up and Rainbow-down shapes (for Elli)
• New option to display the word list as comma-delimited, instead of as columns (See Page Details, "Print as list of".) Works better for long words. (Thanks Thomas)
• You can now choose to print the Answer key with the non-answer letters as a dim gray color (See PageDetails: Print Puzzle Letters: Dimmed) (Thanks Eliza!)
• Export menu items are now condensed into a single export comand, and you can choose puzzle and/or answer once, and it will remember and export both all at once for you, instead of choosing each one separately.
• Changed 1" margins to 1/2" margins for printed pages. (Thanks Diana)
• Copying the word list via "Edit:Copy Formatted Word List as text" now will mark hidden words with their "*" prefix, if you have "Print Hidden Words in Answer" turned on. It will also format the word list as you have requested in the Page Details tab, as comma delimited, numbered, alphabetized, etc.
• iPuz command removed from export menu, never got used.
• Changed the wording of the Help menu item "Report a problem" to "Contact Author".
• LITE version now can EXPORT files, but only with PNG files.
• LITE version now has square, circle, up-triangle and down-triangle shapes.
• The Start/Stop menu items have moved to a new separate Actions menu.
• MOVED all the Export settings from the Preferences/Settings window tab to the Export window itself. The export settings are still persistently remembered there as you change them, but are in a more accessible spot. (Thanks Diana & Thomas.)
• The "Preferences" menu item is now permanently renamed to "Settings" to match Apple's changing it in MacOS 13 (Ventura). Updated the user guide and Intro screen shots to refer to this new name. (Thanks Diana!)
• SVG Export correctly exports SANS-serif letters, and is now more tidy internally.
• Opening an older version document now displays which older version the document was saved as with the more standard "x.y.z" version display.
• LITE version now can EXPORT PNG files directly.
• LITE version now has square, circle, up-triangle and down-triangle shapes.
• BugFix: Changing language now correctly marks the puzzle as un-built, so that print/export menus are dimmed until you re-build the puzzle.
• BugFix: Whenever you use the Edit:Copy... menu items to copy puzzle, image, text, or word list, you will now always see the little temporary "Copied" image flash on the window to let you know it did something.
• BugFix: Settings dialog, the "Extra Hidden Words" and "Excluded Words" tabs now have their own popup menus for choosing the language to use, independent of which language you currently chose in your document.

4.6.4 - January, 2023

• Added "Report a Problem" item to the Help menu, to easily send e-mail with software information attached.
• BugFix: When opening older saved Whirlwind documents that used the "Numbers (Arabic)" alphaset, they would give an error about the word list being incorrect. This is now fixed. You will need to open the document (which will open to the ENGLISH alphaset, and then re-choose the NUMBERS alphaset, and it can then build a word search without errors. (Thanks Jen!)

4.6.3 - January, 2023

• New Language supported, Norwegian! (thanks Anna!)
• New feature: You can now set "Extra Hidden Words" which will be added to all your puzzles, like a permanent watermark.
• New feature: You can now set "Excluded Words" which lets you extend the list of already-known "naughty words", and will remove them if found in the random puzzle letters.
• Sorted the list of alphabets in the Word List Alphabet popup menu, so they are easier to find... "English" is always first, and "Numbers" is always last though.
• Some clarifying and distilling of the Intro screens, both user interface and the content (thanks Kat!)
• Improved wording of Secret Message Prompting in the SECRET MESSAGE pane.
• Moved the checkboxes "Print Separator Lines" and "Print SchwanSongs logo" from Answer Page to Puzzle Page area.
• The direction arrows that are displayed under the DIFFICULTY tab (both BASIC and ADVANCED) are now more readable in Dark Mode, and the ADVANCED arrow buttons look like buttons! (Thanks Anna!)
• When changing the Title "Font Size Adjustment" you now see it change "live" on the Preview area.
• BugFix: If you paste title and/or subtitle text that is multiple lines tall (with newlines in them) they no longer squish down the checkboxes at the bottom of the preview window, the text will truncate instead. (Thanks Chris!)
• BugFix: Copying the image of the current Answer from the Edit menu now properly reflects your printed solution settings, including whether to highlight the Secret message and hidden words, and also reflects your cell background color choice. (Thank you Clare!)

4.6.2 - October, 2022

• BugFix: Copy/Pasting a text word list from Adobe InDesign into Whirlwind's word list would run all the words together, now fixed (thanks Brad!) BTW, why is Adobe still using carriage-return line endings on Macs? Apple changed that over a DECADE ago... perhaps it is a difficult bug for Adobe to fix. ;-)

4.6.1 - September, 2022

• Modest re-arranging of the main window tabs, breaking the controls for the page titles out into a separate "Titles" tab now. This leaves some room for a BIG feature coming soon.
• Updated final screen of Intro Window with new "full product software list"
• Newly revised User Guide, increased font size a bit for easier reading.
• Your word list is automatically "cleaned up" and updated in-place when you click "Create"... commas are turned into newlines and any empty lines between words are removed.
• Added the ability to enter a specific font point size for the grid letters, instead of the auto-font-resizing style. You can still use the vertical centering controls with fixed font size. (thanks Jen!)
• INCREASED font size a bit for easier reading of Word List text and of Secret Message text.
• Added a "PRIOR" button to the intro screen
• When you "lock in" your own SPIN (which forces the puzzle to be built with the same word layout each time you hit CREATE), there is now a warning text that displays just above the tabs that lets you know that you have turned this option on.
• BugFix: Pasting a text word list from Microsoft Word was adding extra invisible (CR) characters and causing Whirlwind to issue a "Selected letter not allowed" error, now fixed (thanks Jen!)
• BugFix: The "Draw only outline" feature now works correctly with square or rectangle shapes.
• BugFix: SVG Export of Answer now correctly hides the "Secret Message" squares if you turn off "Highlight Secret Message on Answer" (Thanks Simon!)
• BugFix: SVG Export of Answer now displays Hidden words with a light gray strikethrough, and now always shows hidden words correctly.

4.6.0 - July 14, 2022

• Compound words can now be entered as-is with spaces instead of the underscore place-holder character! This means that your original word-lists will work as-is and will *not* need to be modified with underscores when adding to Whirlwind (one less step for you!)
• Added a new "draw only shape outline" mode that draws the outer shape wall lines, but not inner grid-lines.
• Added 4 new shapes: Chevron-Up, Chevron-Down, Chevron-Left, Chevron-Right.
• Added some diacriticals to the English allowed letters, so you can now use many loan words, like façade and jalapeño. (Thanks Brad!)
• The Secret Message printed hint at the bottom of the puzzle page now can be anything you want. There is a free-form text field to enter your own hint about what to find.
• Exported file names can now automatically include the SPIN number that generated the puzzle in them, for easy differentiation.
• Bumped minimum supported OS to 10.12.
• Preview display now has two new checkboxes, "Show secret message" and "show hidden words", which let you visually show/hide these items on the PREVIEW display, without affecting your settings for the final printed answer key.
• Added a "Copy Formatted Word List as Text" option (as a menu item and button under the word list) to export a clean text word list for easy page layout insertion. (Brad & Simon & others)
• Many more "dirty words" are detected and removed from the random fill area, in English and several other languages. (Thanks Brad!)
• BugFix: Checkboxes under the Word List are now consistent sizes. (Thanks Brad!)
• BugFix: When exporting a puzzle or answer to PDF/PNG by using the keyboard shortcut instead of the File menu item via mouse, the highlighted preview extras (bad words/decoy words) no longer get accidentally added to the exported image. (Thanks Brad!)
• BugFix: If you add a list of words with NO word clues, and you choose to print "word clues", it now simply prints your list of words (instead of an empty list.)

4.5.0 - May, 2022

• Builds puzzles much faster and better than before.
• Title/Subtitle text is now displayed in the Preview Area and auto-updates as you change it. [Thanks Debbie]
• New menu item to quickly set puzzle to black-and-white color scheme for printing. [Thanks Duncan]
• New Upright-Oval Shape. [Thanks Jen]
• Optional "Allow Duplicates" checkbox allows you to make a word search puzzle that contains the same word multiple times. [Thanks Matt]
• Preview can now toggle between PUZZLE view and ANSWER view.
• Better error message explanations when the puzzle cannot be built.
• Non-English puzzles made in the "easier" difficulty modes no longer fill the puzzles with letters containing diacriticals.
• The "Too Many Words" error message now displays about how many extra letters there are, so you know how many to remove.
• SVG Export now supports the font size/vertical-positioning adjustments.
• Better Italian support [Thanks Riccardo]
• New feature to strip all diacriticals from puzzle letters, for supporting non-English language puzzle styles. [Thanks Riccardo]
• Better arrangement of Secret Message controls.
• SPIN text field handles non-digit text entry more nicely.
• The Preview puzzle now floats in the center of the Preview area.
• The Preview "extras" (Naughty Words, Dupe Words, Decoys) now display their lines on the Preview display slightly offset from each other, so they are easier to see when they overlap.

4.0.0 - Nov 1, 2019

3.0.0 - Dec 8, 2018

2.0.0 - Jul 4, 2014

1.0.0 - Feb 1, 2013

Available at the App Store!

0.2 - Sept, 2012

Idea formed - Wrote notes and started designing a powerful Mac word search application in C++.

0.1 - 1982

Wrote a simple word search program in AppleSoft BASIC

0.0 - 1966

First introduction to printed word search puzzles on the placemat of a Colony Kitchen restaurant.

• A wildly popular live-streaming game-show, “Speed Quizzing with Ian” includes many puzzles, including a word search built with Whirlwind WordSearch. You can join the fun on any number of platforms here:
  • Facebook Page
  • Facebook Group
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • TikTok
  • Twitch
• "The Book Next Door" is a publishing company run by Clare Harris. One aspect of her business is creating and publishing "English-as-Second-Language" (ESL) learning books, integrating word-search puzzles to teach vocabulary and spelling at different levels.
• Lily Fairwick has used Whirlwind in some of her published books *here* and *here*. She aspires to contribute to the recovery process while offering moments of joy and comfort to individuals undergoing stroke, TBI, and aphasia rehabilitation. Lily remains dedicated to expanding her understanding through ongoing patient care studies and staying current with the latest research in rehabilitation science.
• My Word! is a suite of themed word puzzle books I am publishing, which use word searches, mazes, etc. to offer fun facts about various topics, for kids and adults.
• A great activity book by a friend who used Whirlwind WordSearch for some of the content: Fun Filled Variety Puzzle Book For Adults.

(Please contact me if you want to have your product/site added to this list!)

Q: Do you offer a free version of this software, so I can try it out first?
A: Yes! Please see the link Pricing & Download above.

Q: Can I make my own commercial puzzle book with these puzzles and sell my book without royalty or copyright issues?
A: Yes you can... Any puzzles you create using my software are completely yours to give away or sell. I don't require royalty payments or "commercial rights" forms, you don't even need to mention my software in your product. Your puzzles stay on your computer. Whirlwind WordSearch never requires you to create an account and never stores any of your information in the cloud.

Q: Is this an interactive game I play on the computer?
A: Not directly, this is software that will generate PDF or printed puzzles and their solutions. However, you can export the puzzle information (especially by using the Pro version's "ESP File" format) and use the puzzle data to build your own web or native game software around.

Q: Can I save the puzzles as PDF files instead of printing them?
A: Yes you can... Open your puzzle in Whirlwind WordSearch and click the "Print" button, and from the Print dialog, near the bottom is a popup menu. Choose "Save as PDF" from there, and it will write it as a PDF file to your computer. Or, choose the "File:Export:" menu and choose to export just the puzzle, or answer key, or both as a PDF file.

Q: Can I export the puzzles as text and import them as tables, to add my own formatting?
A: Yes you can... Open your puzzle in Whirlwind WordSearch and choose "Copy as Text" from the Edit menu, and paste into your word processor, and convert the tab-delimited puzzle and answer into a table, and format it.

Q: If I save a wordsearch puzzle document, then later re-open it, will it keep the same word layout?
A: Yes, if you open a saved document, it will be laid out exactly the same way that you saved it. The only exception to this is if you open a document that was saved in a much older version of the software, for example, opening a document created with version 3.x or 4.x, in which case it will update and save most of your settings, but you will need to re-build the puzzle. So many features and advanced settings have changed that it cannot exactly re-create the older layout.

Q: Can I use a multi-word phrase as a single "word" entry?
A: Yes. You can add phrases like "may the force be with you", or compound words like "Blue Jay". Simply add each multi-word phrase on its own separate line in the word list box. You can also paste in a list of words and phrases all at once, and as long as each "item" is separated by a comma, it will be seen as a single word item.

Q: How do I 'lock' a puzzle I like, so that it keeps the word placement without shuffling the answer key, but also lets me change the title, fonts or colors and re-make the same puzzle?
A: Once you have generated a puzzle you like, and want to 'lock the words into place', simply go to the advanced tab, and near the bottom, click "Choose your own SPIN below". Then you can change display-things like Title/subtitle text, puzzle letter font, secret message hint style, or grid display, and then re-create the puzzle and your word search words will still be in their original place, based on that locked SPIN value. Note: If you change other aspects of the puzzle though, a whole different puzzle layout will be created from the SPIN value. For example, if you change the puzzle size, shape, difficulty, or change any of the words or secret message or secret message position, the puzzle will have to change. This is because Whirlwind WordSearch has to re-check the new words or secret message text and find new places for them to guarantee no accidentally created duplicate or naughty words snuck into the new positions.

Q: That wood-grain look is so... 1970s! Can I turn it off?
A: Yes you can! Look under the top "Whirlwind WordSearch" menu and select the "Settings" menu item, where you can turn on/off that look! Luckily I did not add orange shag carpeting or olive-drab buttons!

Q: Can you add another language for me?
A: Yes I can. However... it does take some research and work to add each new language. If you are fluent in that language and you are willing to help me a little with it (and get credit in the next version of the published app), then please e-mail me with your proposed language. The work you will need to do will only take about an hour of your time.

Q: How do I upgrade to the Pro version to get the extra powerful features?
A: To permanently upgrade your copy to Pro:

• Run Whirlwind WordSearch, find the "Whirlwind WordSearch" application menu at the top left of your screen, and open it and select the menu item "Pro Upgrade..." This menu item lets you immediately get all the extra features available in the Professional (Pro) version of this software via a one-time in-app purchase.

• Simply tap the button "Upgrade for $--" to begin the upgrade. If you have already purchased this Pro upgrade on a different computer and don’t yet have the upgrade license on this computer, you can easily use this dialog to “Restore” your Pro purchase onto this computer as well. In that case, simply tap the “Restore purchase” button instead. Once you have upgraded to Pro, you will be able to receive all future Pro updates and new Full and Pro features for free, forever.
• You will be asked to log into the Apple App Store with your Apple ID that you use to purchase software and then you will be able to upgrade or restore restore now.


• After upgrading you will need to quit and re-start the software to allow it to start up with the Pro features.

• After that, you will have all the Pro features available to you (bigger puzzles, Bulk-Builder, user-designed shapes, alpha-numeric shapes, more export styles, etc.)

Q: I was peeking inside your application and see references to "WSS". Shouldn't (W)hirlwind (W)ord(S)earch be WWS? Are you dyslexic or acronym-challenged?
A: WSS comes from the old project name for this software "Word Search Sensei", before I renamed it. Omoshiroi desune?

Q: Will you make other kinds of educational puzzle software?
A: Yes, I have released Lyttony (story-writing-helper), Bingo Genie (Customized Bingo-Card maker), and am working on other projects now. You can see hints for these upcoming projects on my main software page.

BLOG: If you are interested in a deeper behind-the-scenes Blog/essay on the creation of this software, please visit my word-search blog entry here.

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