Word search help

[wordsearch]

I'm trying to solve a 20x15 word search. It comes with no words to find. The clues are you may ignore all three letter words and some proper nouns. It also gives a clue to use excel.

 

[6StringJazzer]

Do you have a question?

I see no way to use Excel for something like this without a list of words.

 

[wordsearch]

I think some of the words you can find may lead to a formula

 

[Eric W]

If you're willing to use VBA, you can try this. Open a new workbook. Enter your word search grid in the sheet, one letter per cell. (See below for example.) Then right click on the sheet tab, select View Code. Then press Alt-IM to Insert a Module. Then paste the following code in the window that opens:

Sub WordSearch()
Dim puzzle As Object, Output As Object, grid As Variant, MaxCol As Long, MaxRow As Long
Dim dirs As Variant, dirx As Variant, diry As Variant
Dim r As Long, c As Long, d As Long, w As String, w2 As String
Dim resc As Long, i as long

    Set puzzle = Range("A1:O20")
    Set Output = Range("R1")
    grid = puzzle.Value
    
    MaxCol = UBound(grid, 2)
    MaxRow = UBound(grid)
    resc = 0
    Output.Resize(1000, 3).ClearContents
    Output.Resize(, 3) = Array("Word", "Start", "Direction")
    
    dirs = Array("N", "NE", "E", "SE", "S", "SW", "W", "NW")
    dirr = Array(-1, -1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, -1)
    dirc = Array(0, 1, 1, 1, 0, -1, -1, -1)

    For r = 1 To MaxRow
        For c = 1 To MaxCol
            Application.StatusBar = "Found: " & resc & "  Checking " & puzzle.Cells(r, c).Address(0, 0)
            For d = 0 To 7
                w = GetWord(grid, r, c, d, dirs, dirr, dirc)
                For i = 4 To Len(w)
                    w2 = Left(w, i)
                    If Application.CheckSpelling(w2) Then
                        resc = resc + 1
                        Output.Offset(resc) = w2
                        Output.Offset(resc, 1) = puzzle.Cells(r, c).Address(0, 0)
                        Output.Offset(resc, 2) = dirs(d)
                        DoEvents
                    End If
                Next i
            Next d
        Next c

    Next r
    
    Application.StatusBar = False
    If resc = 0 Then
        MsgBox "No words found"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    
End Sub

Function GetWord(ByRef grid, ByVal r, ByVal c, ByRef d, ByRef dirs, ByRef dirr, ByRef dirc)

    GetWord = ""
    
    While r <= UBound(grid) And c <= UBound(grid, 2) And r > 0 And c > 0
        GetWord = GetWord & LCase(grid(r, c))
        r = r + dirr(d)
        c = c + dirc(d)
    Wend
            
End Function

On the top 2 indented lines, put the range where you put the grid, and the location where you want the results. Return to the Excel window, press Alt-F8 to open the macro selector, and click on WordSearch. The routine is relatively slow, the CheckSpelling method is time consuming. If you had a list of potential words, we could replace that with a dictionary of the words and just use .Exists and it would go much faster. As it is, each row takes about 90 seconds, or 30 minutes for the whole thing. The status bar updates as it goes.

Consider this:

Book2
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T
1	X	O	V	S	E	B	P	V	P	I	P	I	A	N	O			Word	Start	Direction
2	R	J	X	X	U	S	D	L	S	I	P	A	K	W	V			ploy	G1	SE
3	X	R	M	A	R	E	W	D	O	L	H	K	E	U	B			pipi	I1	E
4	H	R	I	C	D	G	Q	A	T	Y	B	J	T	A	T			pian	K1	E
5	P	S	C	K	M	T	J	X	L	U	D	L	L	E	V			piano	K1	E
6	C	D	R	M	D	J	F	A	Y	A	T	Q	K	L	F			mare	C3	E
7	H	K	O	N	O	W	T	V	F	P	Q	T	V	Q	S			micro	C3	S
8	Y	V	P	G	P	R	K	D	N	C	N	B	C	F	X			microphone	C3	S
9	B	F	H	Z	M	Y	B	U	S	X	X	S	A	K	E			crop	C5	S
10	B	R	O	S	N	J	J	A	O	G	X	H	G	C	X			laws	I5	NW
11	G	R	N	Q	W	O	S	A	N	W	F	F	D	J	J			nowt	D7	E
12	T	G	E	J	Y	F	R	X	T	A	K	G	K	N	I			phone	C8	S
13	L	A	Y	N	B	Q	Z	M	U	O	N	N	E	H	P			hone	C9	S
14	L	X	Z	D	P	N	J	J	O	U	S	A	G	E	W			honey	C9	S
15	O	F	H	G	F	Z	I	S	B	C	S	R	L	B	M			banana	G9	SE
16	W	A	A	N	O	F	R	Z	L	O	K	Z	R	J	D			sake	L9	E
17	J	U	K	R	Q	U	P	K	M	N	R	C	T	E	U			bros	A10	E
18	E	M	P	C	B	R	C	U	L	F	W	Q	F	H	C			sorb	D10	W
19	G	E	U	F	A	E	X	M	T	K	C	T	J	Q	A			norm	E10	SE
20	S	A	D	L	U	J	Z	W	A	P	Y	V	U	E	W			nana	I11	SE
21																		anal	J12	SE
22																		muon	H13	E
23																		mock	H13	SE
24																		nana	K13	NW
25																		usage	J14	E
26																		sage	K14	E
27																		sook	H15	NE
28																		bout	I15	N
29																		bung	I15	NE
30																		conf	J15	S
31																		rang	L15	N
32																		deft	O16	SW
33																		errs	N17	NW
34																		burs	E18	NE
35																		jack	F20	NW
36																		zebra	G20	NW
Sheet1

The A1:O20 range is a set of random letters I created for testing. I put 4 real words in it to test with. As you can see, there were plenty of other words found, some were just lucky creations from the random letters, some were odd words that exist in Excel's dictionary.

I don't believe you can do this with formulas, since CheckSpelling isn't available to formulas. If you had a word list, maybe. Anyway, hope this helps!