The Word Is Right There on the Page. Good Luck Counting It.
Look at a grid made of five letters. Not twenty-six. Five: P, U, Z, L and E.
The word is printed. The count is not.
The word hidden in there is PUZZLE, and it is in there a dozen times over. Across, down, diagonally, backwards. Your solver knows exactly what they are hunting, because you printed it above the grid. What they do not know, and cannot guess, is how many.
That is the whole puzzle. Not “find the words” but “count them”. And it changes everything about how the grid feels, because every single square is a near miss. There is no shape to spot, no rare letter to anchor on, nothing to do but work the grid in order and hold a running tally.
This is not an invented gimmick. It has been running in Dutch puzzle magazines, which is where we found it. We built the generator. The format was already proving itself.
And if you publish word searches, you know the problem it solves. Yours is the most crowded category on the shelf, and one grid of scattered letters looks much like another. This is the same familiar format your readers already love, asking one question they have almost certainly never been asked.
Isn’t This Just a Word Search With the List Removed?
No, and your solvers will feel the difference before they finish the first grid. Your readers finish a word search on the train and forget it by the next stop. You want the puzzle they photograph and argue about, the one where two people get different numbers and have to go back through the grid.
Counting does that, because it is a different task. Finding a word is recognition: your eye knows the shape and locks on. Counting is completeness: you have to be certain you found all of them, and being certain is much harder than being fast.
The rule fits in one line, and your reader already knows nine tenths of it. It looks like a word search, it is solved like a word search, and the only new instruction is count them all. That is the rare combination: fresh enough to stand out on a shelf, familiar enough that nobody puts the book down.
One Setting Decides Whether the Book Is Gentle or Brutal
The filler letters, meaning everything that is not part of a hidden copy, set the difficulty. The two ends of that dial are not the same puzzle.
One setting, two products. Left: ordinary filler, and the copies almost announce themselves. Right: filler drawn from the word’s own letters, and there is nothing to do but read.
Fill the grid from the whole alphabet and each hidden copy sits in a jumble of unrelated letters, so the eye picks the run out as a shape and the puzzle is a pleasant warm up. Fill it from the target word’s own letters and every run of letters in the grid is nearly the word. One is a two minute opener. The other is why somebody puts the book down, picks it up again, and counts the whole grid a second time.
Same word, same grid, same page count. You choose per puzzle, per section, or per book.
The Answer Is Counted, Never Assumed
Here is the thing that would sink a counting book: you ask for twelve copies, the grid fits eleven, and you print an answer key that says twelve. Every solver who counts correctly thinks they got it wrong, and you find out in the reviews.
So the generator does not trust its own request. It reads the finished grid the way a solver does, all eight directions, and prints what is actually there.
Asked for twelve. Counted twelve, from the finished grid rather than from the request.
And when it cannot deliver what you asked, it says so. An impossible ask is refused before anything generates, with the numbers: how many letter cells your word and count need, against how many the grid has. A grid that comes up short still generates, prints the true count, and reports the shortfall on the status line. The number on the key is always the number in the grid, which is not always the number you typed: a saturated grid can come in under, and a word with another word inside it can come in over. Either way, the key is what a solver will actually find.
That is the guarantee the whole format rests on, and it is why a counting book is safe to publish at all. Editions are at the top of this page.
One Format, Enough Range for a Hundred Pages
The reason a counting book does not run out of steam at page thirty: the same rules stretch from a gentle one-word grid to a three-word page on word-letter filler. That is a real difficulty arc, not fifty copies of the same page.
- Themed collections. A word list is the spine of a book. Autumn, animals, holidays, a country, a sport. Fifty words gives you fifty pages, each naming its own word.
- Two difficulty editions from one list. Run the same fifty words twice at different settings and you have a “gentle” book and an “expert” book without writing a second list.
- Classroom and worksheet sets. One number per sheet, and a ringed solution for every page. For thirty sheets that mark against a single answer, generate one puzzle and photocopy it; to aim a whole run at the same count, set the minimum and maximum occurrences to the same value.
- Multi word pages. Up to three words on one grid (Creative and above), each counted separately with its own answer line.
- Shaped feature pages. Confine the grid to a leaf, a heart, a star, or a silhouette of your own, so a seasonal section looks seasonal.
- Puzzles that play on your own website (Creative Interactive or Productivity Interactive), so a free set becomes a reason to stay and a route to the printed book.
Three Words, One Grid, Three Separate Answers
Somewhere around page forty a good solver stops sweating. That is where you put three words on one board. Three counts, three answer lines, one grid, and the filler pools every word’s letters so nobody’s odd letter gives the game away.
Three separate questions sharing one board.
Three words on one grid is Creative and above.
Every Word Search Page on That Shelf Is a Rectangle. Yours Does Not Have To Be.
Drop in a silhouette, your own artwork or one of the built in shapes, and the letters pour into a leaf, a star, a heart. One puzzle per shape, cycled across a batch. Same rules, same kind of answer, but the October section now looks like October, and that is the page a browser stops on.
This is the page a browser stops on. (A leaf holds fewer copies than the rectangle it was cut from, so set your counts from the shape.)
Shaped grids are Creative and above.
Your Word List Writes the Whole Book
Type or load a list, choose whether pages take words in order or shuffled, and decide what happens at the end of it: start again until you hit your page count, or stop when the list runs out and let the list define the book. Fifty words and a page count of a hundred gives you a hundred pages, two per word.
Bring your own list, or let the built in AI Word List Assistant generate a themed one for you. It is optional, and it is free with your own OpenAI or Anthropic key.
The work in a counting book is the word list. Everything after it — the grids, the placements, the answers, the solution pages, the key at the back — is generated, so a themed hundred-page interior is an afternoon of choosing words and a run, not a week of layout. By the end of one session the interior is done and the cover is the only thing left.
A book that opens gentle and closes brutal normally means running the generator once per section and remembering where you were. Time Saver (Productivity) does the whole arc in one go: one row per section, each with its own words, grid size and difficulty, generated in a single run. Teachers use the same rows for ability groups instead of chapters — row one support, row two on-level, row three extension, one word list across all three.
Then the interior assembles itself. Instant Puzzle Books is on every edition, Standard included: a finished book PDF straight from the page settings you already have, with margins, trim size, titles, page numbers, contents and the answer key. From Creative up, Puzzle Book Studio lets you take that layout apart and rebuild it your way, and on Productivity it pours several collections into one spine.
The Same Puzzle, Playable on Your Own Site
Give ten of these away in the browser and you have a reason for readers to come back tomorrow.
Solvers drag across the grid exactly as they would in a word search. Each new copy bumps the counter. Dragging the same one twice does not, and two copies that cross still count as two, so the tally on screen lands on the number in your printed key. The target never appears, because the target is the answer — the puzzle checks the count silently and says when they have them all.
The free Puzzle Maker Pro Online WordPress plugin puts a set on your site in one of two shapes. A dropdown list is the simple one: pick a puzzle, solve it. A level path game is the one that holds people — you decide whether levels unlock in order or all stay open, progress saves in the visitor’s browser, cleared levels stay marked, and a finish screen carries your own message and a button to the book.
The web lane comes with the Interactive add-on, on Creative or Productivity.
Which Edition Should You Choose?
Every edition makes a real book. All five generate the puzzles, take a word list, print PNG, JPG, SVG and PDF, hand you a finished book PDF through Instant Puzzle Books, and let you sell what you make. Most publishers still start with Creative, because shaped grids and three-word pages are what stop the pages looking like everyone else’s.
These are the only differences:
| Standard | Creative | Creative Interactive | Productivity | Productivity Interactive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Words per grid | 1 | Up to 3 | Up to 3 | Up to 3 | Up to 3 |
| Shaped grids (masks) | — | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Puzzle Book Studio (full book layout editing) | — | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Combine several collections into one book | — | — | — | Yes | Yes |
| Time Saver batches | — | — | — | Yes | Yes |
| JSON and HTML output | — | — | Yes | — | Yes |
| Play on the web (list or game) | — | — | Yes | — | Yes |
| Sell or supply the generated puzzles to other publishers | — | — | — | Yes | Yes |
Two separate choices. Batching lives on the Productivity rung; Interactive is the add-on you put on top of Creative or Productivity to get the web lane. Want both? That is Productivity Interactive.
Stanard is the budget branch of that same recommendation, and it is a real one: the word list, print output, Instant Puzzle Books for the finished PDF, and the licence to sell what you make. Plenty for classroom sets and a straightforward counting title.
Creative if you want the pages to look like yours: three words on a grid, shaped outlines, and Puzzle Book Studio for full layout control.
Productivity if you publish at volume and want a mixed book built in one run, or you supply puzzles to other publishers.
Interactive on top of either if your puzzles should play on your website as well as print.
And you are not locked in. Every edition upgrades to any higher one after you buy, along either axis: up the ladder, or Interactive added on top of what you already own. Start with what fits the book you are making this month.
Two Ability Levels from One Word List
This is the part teachers ask about, so here it is concretely. One grid cannot serve two groups, because difficulty lives in the settings. But one word list serves both, in two runs:
- Support group: 11×11, alphabet filler, kids mode (right, down and down-right), backwards reading switched off, six to eight copies.
- Extension group: the same word, 17×15, word-letters filler, all eight directions, twelve to twenty copies.
Two runs, two sheets, two keys, one word list — and this works on any edition, Standard included, because it is two passes rather than a batch feature. Each version gets its own answer, because the count is scanned from each finished grid rather than copied from the other. On Productivity, Time Saver collapses both passes into a single run with one row per group.
What it exercises is worth naming in a listing: systematic scanning and visual discrimination rather than lucky recognition. Solvers work the grid in a fixed order, hold a running tally, and resist the near misses. Useful for sustained attention, careful checking, and early finishers who blow through an ordinary word search in two minutes.
Who This Is For
Word search publishers with a saturated catalog. If your last three books were the same grid with different word lists, this is the same audience and the same format asking a question they have not been asked. You do not need a new readership, only a new page.
Puzzle book publishers who want a harder tier. Counting is the natural step up from finding, and it works as the back half of a book or a book of its own.
Teachers, tutors and worksheet sellers. One number per sheet, one word list serving two ability groups, and direction settings that keep every copy reading forward for younger solvers.
Site owners and course creators. With Creative Interactive or Productivity Interactive your puzzles play in the browser on your own site, as a list or an unlocking game, with a finish screen that points at your book.
If you have been publishing more of the same word search because it sells and you had nothing else to put in the slot, this is what changes.
Try It Before You Buy
You do not have to take any of this on faith. Download the demo, generate a grid tonight, and hand it to the most confident puzzler you know.
The demo produces watermarked image output, one puzzle at a time, which is enough to print one at page size, hand it over, and time them. That is the test worth running before you buy.
Licensing and Commercial Use
Standard and Creative both carry the same commercial license: sell the finished puzzle products you make, books, worksheets and printable packs, to your own readers and customers, on Amazon KDP, Etsy, Teachers Pay Teachers or your own store.
Productivity adds a business to business license: sell or supply the generated puzzles themselves to other publishers and sellers.
There is no separate royalty, no per book fee and no reporting requirement. What you make is yours to sell.
Product Details
| Product | Puzzle Maker Pro – Count Word Search |
| Editions | Standard, Creative, Productivity; Creative and Productivity are also available as Creative Interactive and Productivity Interactive |
| Platform | Windows desktop |
| Internet required | No for generating; yes for the AI Word List Assistant and for publishing web play |
| Grid sizes | 5×5 up to 200×200 |
| Occurrences per word | 1 to 500, set as a fixed number or a range |
| Words per grid | 1 (Standard), up to 3 (Creative and above) |
| Difficulty control | Filler alphabet, placement directions, grid size, occurrence count |
| Output formats | PNG, JPG, SVG, PDF (all editions); JSON and HTML (Creative Interactive, Productivity Interactive) |
| Page sizes | Any trim size or paper size you set, including US Letter and A4 |
| Solution pages | Yes, a ringed solution image generated with every puzzle |
| Puzzle books | Finished book PDF on every edition; full layout editing from Creative up |
| Web play | Creative Interactive, Productivity Interactive |
| Time Saver | Productivity and Productivity Interactive |
| Upgrades | Any edition upgrades to any higher edition after purchase |
| Commercial license | Sell finished puzzle products to your own readers and customers (Standard and Creative); adds selling or supplying the generated puzzles to other publishers and sellers (Productivity) |
| Free demo | Yes |
| Delivery | Immediate, in your member area |
Questions Before You Choose an Edition
Is there a free demo? Yes. Puzzle Maker Pro has a free demo covering the modules in the app, and Count Word Search is in it. Demo output is watermarked, one puzzle at a time.
Can I upgrade later? Yes. Every edition upgrades to any higher one after purchase, and it works along both axes: up the ladder from Standard to Creative or Productivity, and Interactive added on top of whichever of those you own. Buy for the book you are making now.
Is this just a word search with the word list removed? No, and the difference shows up in how it is solved. A word search is a recognition task: you know the shape and your eye finds it. Counting is a completeness task, where you have to be sure you found every copy. The filler letters usually come from the target word itself, so there is no shape to spot and no shortcut but reading.
How do I know the printed answer is right? Because it is counted, not assumed. Once the grid is built the generator reads it back in all eight directions, exactly as a solver would, and prints what it finds. An impossible ask is refused before anything generates; a grid that falls a copy short still prints the true count and reports the shortfall on the status line.
Can I really fill a whole book? Yes, and the word list is how. Load fifty words, set your page count, and choose whether to loop the list or stop when it runs out. Every page names its own word and carries its own answer.
Which edition do I need to make a book? All of them — start at Creative unless plain rectangles are all you need. Standard includes the word list and Instant Puzzle Books, so one purchase can produce a full interior. Creative adds shaped grids, three words per page and Puzzle Book Studio; Productivity adds Time Saver for mixed batches.
Can I make it easier for children? Yes. Restrict the hiding to right, down and down-right, switch backwards reading off separately, use ordinary alphabet filler and a shorter word. The counting rule stays the same, so the same book format works for a six year old and an adult.
How do I mark a class set? Every puzzle prints its own ringed solution image, so you always have a per-page key. For thirty sheets that mark against one number, generate a single puzzle and photocopy it. Setting the minimum and maximum occurrences to the same value aims a whole run at the same count, and each page’s key is still counted from its own grid, so a crowded grid can come in under.
Can the puzzle put my word in by accident? The generator fills the grid, then reads it back and hunts for copies it did not place. It rewrites every one it finds before the page prints, and discards a fill it cannot clean. That matters most on the hardest setting, where the filler is the word’s own letters.
Does the answer box give the answer away? No. Its squares are sized from the highest count you allowed anywhere in the run, so every page in a book carries the same box no matter what its own answer is.
Can I sell what I make? Yes, always. Standard and Creative let you sell the finished books, worksheets and printables you create; Productivity adds the right to sell or supply the generated puzzles to other publishers.
Put a Puzzle in the Slot That Isn’t Another Word Search
Keep publishing the same grid and your next book competes on cover art alone, because the inside is identical to everything around it.
Six months from now your shelf could carry counting titles no other publisher on that page is producing: same readers, same familiar format, one question nobody else is asking. Or six months of Friday worksheets your students actually argue over, in a store where every other word search looks the same.
Still deciding? The demo is free and the first grid takes about a minute. Download it, make one tonight, hand it to somebody who thinks word searches are for children, and watch them go back through the grid a second time. That reaction is the whole product.
Ready? Choose your edition at the top of this page.
