Copyright: ® Steven Stern 1993 - Written with CreateHelp!


Word Search
 Welcome to Word Search

The basics:

What is Word Search?

Creating a Word Search Puzzle

Printing

Saving Puzzles and Working with Saved Puzzles

Customizations:

Word Search Setup

For Your Information:

Paying for Word Search

Contacting the Author

Acknowledgements

This software, comprising the WordSearch program and accompanying documentation,  are copywritten material.

Copyright ©1993, Steven D. Stern.

All rights reserved.


Creating a Word Search Puzzle

Creating a Word Search puzzle is almost trivial.  Type in a list of words that you want to hide, pressing ENTER after each.  When all the words are entered, click on the MAKE button.  If you don't like the puzzle, click on MAKE again until it's more to your liking.  Use Setup from the main menu to change the size of the puzzle and the probabilities of various word orientation (e.g., left to right vs. right to left).


Saving Puzzles and Working with Saved Puzzles

Normally, when you exit Word Search, your work is lost.  If you wish to save a puzzle, click on Save from the File menu.  Give the puzzle a name, click OK,  and it (and all the options you have set to produce this particular puzzle), will be saved.  If you use the name of a previously saved puzzle, it will be replaced by the current puzzle.

To load a previously saved puzzle, click Load from the File menu and select one of the previously saved puzzles.

Any saved puzzle can be deleted by clicking Erase from the File menu and selecting one of the previously saved puzzles.

Puzzles are saved in WORDSRCH.INI, which is located in the same directory as the program file, WORDSRCH.EXE.


Printing

There are two wayts to print a Word Search puzzle, clicking the PRINT button or selecting Print from the main menu.

From the Main Menu:

Click on Print or press Alt-P.  You're presented with two options, Print Puzzle and Print Solution.

Print Puzzle prints the puzzle (in the font you've selected).

Print Solution prints only the entries from the word list.  The random masking characters are replaced with asterisks.

Clicking the PRINT button is the same as choosing Print Puzzle.

When the puzzle is printed, the font size is adjusted such that the puzzle will fit in the top 2/3 of the page and the word list appears on the bottom 1/3.  For best results, I suggest that you choose scalable TrueType fonts for the puzzle and word list.


Paying for Word Search

Word Search is a shareware product.  While the term can have many meanings, here's how I choose to use it:

You may install Word Search and try it.  If you don't like it or it doesn't meet your needs, please delete it from your hard disk.  If, on the other hand, you find that you want to keep it, you are obligated (morally, probably legally) to pay for it.

Please send a check for $15 (in US dollars, drawn on a US bank) to:

Steven D. Stern

1540 N. LaSalle Blvd.

Apartment 1708

Chicago, IL  60610

Your payment entitles you to use Word Search on one computer at a time.  If you make copies, you must pay an additional registration for those copies which might be used simultaneously.  The purpose of this is to enable you to have one copy installed in your office and one at home for just one fee.  If you install Word Search on all the PCs in the school library, you must pay a fee for each machine.   Please contact the author for information on multi-copy pricing.

Word Search is distributed via electronic bulletin boards and on-line services.  The distribution file may be redistributed by individuals.  Anyone who wishes to redistribute Word Search as part of a for-profit enterprise must contact the author at the above address for permission.  Any redistribution for profit without the author's explicit written permission is forbidden.

The electronic distibution of Word Search includes all files necessary to use it execpt VBRUN300.DLL.  Due to the size of this file, and the fact that it may already be on your machine, I've chosen to leave it out of the archive.  If you do not already have VBRUN300.DLL, it is probably available on the same service from which you downloaded Word Search.  (Compuserve users can find the file by in the MSBASIC forum as VBR300.ZIP.)  See the included

file "WordSearch.wri" for installation information.

If you would like to receive a full installation diskette, including a copy of VBRUN300.DLL, please send $5 to the author, along with your name, address, and preferred diskette size.


What is Word Search?

Word Search makes word search puzzles.  While you can buy books of these at the checkout stand at the supermarket, you can rarely find them for exactly the words you're looking for.

Word Search was written to help my kids study their spelling words each week.  Neither of them likes to study, but both like puzzles.  When the spelling words are hidden in a puzzle, they're unaware of how many times they review the list of words as they search.  When applied rigorously in a regular, daily program of puzzling, the spelling scores improved.

Word Search can make easy puzzles or hard ones.  You have complete control.  Work with some of the Setup settings (especially the backwards and diagonal probabilities) to make your puzzles more challenging.


 Contacting the Author

The author of this program is:

Steven D. Stern

1540 N. LaSalle Blvd.

Apartment 1708

Chicago, IL  60610

You can contact me via US Mail at the above address or through electronic mail.  My Compuserve electronic mail address (in the Internet format) is:

70327.135@CompuServe.com

Please send along any questions, comments, bug reports, or suggestions.  All are welcome and I will reply to each.

Please, no telephone calls!


Word Search Options
 Word Search Setup

From the Setup menu, you have access to the following options:

Rows and Columns:	Define the puzzle size

Orientation:	Left to right, right to left, top down, bottom up, diagonal, reverse diagonal

Capitals:	Capitalize all entries  Check this entry to turn on capitals.

Fonts:	Choose the printing fonts.  Word Search will choose a font size.

Printer Setup:	Access the Windows Printer Setup dialog


Rows and Columns


Orientation

This dialog displays the probability of any enabled orientation.  Use the slider controls to adjust any one orientation.  When you adjust one, of course, the probability of every other orientation changes.  The changes are reflected in the boxes to the right.  Click on a slider to see the orientation definitions.


Orientation Defintions

This is left to right:	ABCDEF

This is right to left:	FEDCBA

This is top down:

A

B

C

D

E

This is bottom up:

E

D

C

B

A

L to R Diagonal

L
	t
		o
			R
R to L Diagonal

			R
		t
	o
L


Acknowledgements

WordSearch is written in Microsoft's Visual Basic, version 3.0.

This help file was produced using Microsoft's Word for Windows and the CreateHelp package from:

Nic Barnes

CHC

27 West Park, London SE9 4RZ

ENGLAND

Compuserve: 100111,3452

Thanks to my son Aaron and his class at Lincon School for the encouragement and spelling lists.


MAKE - MAKE is used to make a puzzle.  It combines the words in the list with random letters and places them all in the puzzle grid.


Alt-P - Press the ALT and P keys simultaneously.


VBRUN300.DLL - This file contains the code which enables Visual Basic programs to run on your computer.


rows - Specify the number of rows in the puzzle.  There should be as many rows as the longest word.


Columns -  Specify the number of columns  in the puzzle.  There should be as many columns as the longest word.


OK - OK closes this dialog box and saves your choices.


Cancel - Cancel closes the dialog box without saving or applying your changes.


Check_Box - Check box enable or disable the orientation.  Check it to enable the orientation, clear it to disable the orientation.