How to Play a Word Search, and How Grids Are Made
A word search asks little of the player: spot a word, mark it, move on. What follows is how the marking works, how the printing works, and what a grid goes through before you see it.
On screen a word is claimed by pressing on its first letter and dragging to its last. Mouse and finger behave the same, and the selection runs in a straight line, so a slanted word is taken exactly as a row is. Release on the right letter and it stays marked and leaves the list; release anywhere else and it clears.
No pointer is required. The arrow keys walk from cell to cell, and a word is marked by fixing its first letter, moving to its last, and confirming — the same two points the drag uses. That is steadier than a trackpad, and it keeps the grid open to anyone who would rather not drag.
Printing produces a sheet rather than a photograph of the screen: title, grid, word list, and a discreet line at the foot, with margins that suit US Letter and A4. The answer key is a page of its own and entirely optional: include it when the puzzle is for you, leave it out when it is for somebody else.
Before any grid is displayed, a machine reads it back. It confirms that every listed word sits exactly where it was placed, that none of them has been formed a second time by accident elsewhere in the letters, and that the random fill has not spelled anything unsuitable in any direction. A grid that fails is rebuilt rather than shown, which is what makes random filler safe on a sheet handed to a room.
Printing for a group? Run off one answer page and keep it beside you. Reading the solution from a single sheet is quicker than inspecting every finished grid by eye at the end.