PUZ The Word Puzzle Solver, v1.0 Copyright (c) 1994, David Stephens INTRODUCTION PUZ is a simple but powerful freeware program that can help you solve (or create!) all kinds of word puzzles. Using an internal dictionary of over 100,000 words PUZ can solve puzzles such as Jumbles, Crosswords, Hangman (or "Wheel of Fortune"), Word paths, Word Searches, and more! Additionally a few special searches are included in PUZ. PUZ can analyze a phone number and list the words the phone number "spells." PUZ also has a simple "quick spell check" so you can verify the spelling of a word without loading a big word processor. QUICK START PUZ is a command line program. At the DOS prompt type: PUZ SearchWord /searchOption where /searchOption is one of the following: /J or /Jumble does a "Jumble" search of SearchWord. /P or /Phone Searches a phone number for words it "spells". /C or /Crossword does a "crossword" search for words. /L or /Letter does a search for words 1 letter different than SearchWord. /W or /WordFind does a "word-find" search of SearchWord. (uses letters only once). /M or /MakeWord trys to make words using only letters of SearchWord. (uses letters more than once). /Q or /QuickSpell Says if SearchWord is spelled correctly or lists a few "near" words. Examples: "PUZ EBE /J" finds: BEE. "PUZ 2687425 /P" finds: 2MUSIC5, 268SICK, etc. "PUZ T_X_ /C" finds: TAXI, TEXT. "PUZ TYPING /L" finds: TAPING. "PUZ HELLO /W" finds all words that can be made from the letters in "HELLO" without reusing letters. "PUZ ABCD /M" finds all words that can be made from the letters "ABCD". THE SEARCH OPTIONS IN DETAIL /Jumble (used for jumble puzzles) PUZ will search all combinations of the letters of your SearchWord and will list words that it finds. PUZ can only look up one SearchWord at a time not whole sentances, so only give PUZ one string of letters with no spaces. PUZ CTA /J -- correct (finds CAT, etc) PUZ BERZA /J -- correct (finds ZEBRA, etc) PUZ TEH OOZ /J -- wrong /Phone Ever wonder if your phone number spells anything interesting? Use this search option to scan a phone number to see if it spells anything. When running PUZ with this option only use numbers in the SearchWord: PUZ 5553724 /P -- correct! PUZ 4085553724 /P -- correct! PUZ 555-3724 /P -- wrong PUZ (408)555-3724 /P -- wrong /Crossword (used for crosswords, hangman, wheel of fortune, etc.) Great for finding words when you only know a few of the letters of the word. PUZ will list all words that match the pattern you specify. To use this option just give PUZ the word you're looking for with underbar "_" characters in the position of letters you don't know. Only give PUZ one SearchWord. PUZ Z_B__ /C -- correct (finds ZEBRA) PUZ __X____ /C -- correct (finds all 7 letter words with X as third letter) PUZ T_E H___E /C -- wrong, too many SearchWords Note: you can even give PUZ a SearchWord like "______" This will find every 6 letter word PUZ knows! That could take a long time to list--you can hit Ctrl-Break to stop PUZ. ** This option is also very useful tool for creating crossword puzzles. ** /Letter (used for "word path" puzzles) This option can help you solve puzzles where you change one letter in a word to make another word. A puzzle like this might be: Change DOG into CAT in 3 steps and each step must be a real word. DOG DOT <-- PUZ could have helped you find these middle steps COT <-- CAT PUZ will find all words that are one letter different than SearchWord. Only give PUZ one word at a time. Note: PUZ is also good for creating really hard versions of these puzzles! /WordFind (used for "word find" type puzzles where letters are used only once) PUZ will list all words that can be made from the letters in SearchWord, using the letters only once. PUZ HALLOWEEN /W (finds all the words that you can make from the letters in Halloween. letters can be any order, but are used only once). /MakeWord (used for finding words that contain only certain letters) PUZ will list all words that can be made from the letters in SearchWord. PUZ ABCD /M (finds all the words that can be made with only A,B,C and D) Note: for fun try all letters except A E I O U: PUZ BCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXYZ /M (finds all words and abbreviations that don't have vowels) /QuickSpell (used to check the spelling of a word) PUZ hello /Q (tells you HELLO is spelled correctly) PUZ hellw /Q (gives a list of words alphabetically near "HELLW") ADVANCED TOPICS PUZ uses standard output to display search results, so you can redirect results to a file or filter output with DOS filters. Examples: PUZ CTA /J > RESULT.TXT (writes results of search into file RESULT.TXT) PUZ __X__ /C | MORE (displays the results of search a page at a time) PUZ allows you to use words in addition to its internal dictionary. If a file called "SUP.DIC" exists in the current directory, PUZ will load it and use it in its searches (except for the /QuickSpell search). SUP.DIC should be in ascii form, one word per line, with no spaces before or after each word. A special command line option /S will display all the words in SUP.DIC that are not already in PUZ's internal dictionary. This option is useful with the DOS redirection for stripping out words PUZ already knows from your SUP.DIC file. SOME EXCUSES PUZ has a large dictionary that includes many abbreviations. Sometimes a search might result in lots of bizzare little (or big) words you've never heard of. For now that's how PUZ's dictionary is set up; better dictionaries might be found in a later version of PUZ. SOURCE CODE PUZ is freeware so you don't need to register it. However if you are interested in the source code for PUZ, contact me at the electronic address PUZ displays and I'll send you a copy of the code (for a minor fee of $20 or so). This would include the dictionary, search algoriths, and the 3 compression algorithms used to crunch over a meg of words and code down into a 200k EXE. LEGAL CRAPOLA (I'm not a lawyer so cut me some slack) PUZ is FREEWARE (i.e. there is no charge for the use of this program). You are encouraged to distribute this program to friends and bulletin board systems. When distributing please include both PUZ.EXE and PUZ.DOC. PUZ is copyrighted and is not public domain. The author is providing this program to the public as a service and requests the copyright be respected. So although you can use it free of charge, please don't modify it, or take credit for it yourself. Sale of this program for profit is prohibited. PUZ is provided "as is" with absolutely no warranties. Use PUZ at your own risk; The author will not be liable for problems or damages arising from the use of this program.