Support

Pick a difficulty on the home screen, then a subject in the Library. To mark a term, drag across it, or tap its first letter and then its last. Your line snaps to the nearest of eight directions.

Each term you find is highlighted and crossed off, and its definition appears. Tap any term you’ve found to read its definition again.

• Easy: a 10 × 10 grid with 8 terms that run across, down and diagonally.
• Medium: a 12 × 12 grid with 10 terms. Terms can also run backwards and diagonally up.
• Hard: a 14 × 14 grid with 12 terms in all 8 directions. Half the filler letters come from the terms themselves, so the grid is full of near misses.
• Expert: a 16 × 16 grid with 14 terms in all 8 directions, in clue mode.

There are no grade levels. Every subject plays at every difficulty.

In clue mode, the list shows each term’s definition and how many letters it has, instead of the term itself. Work out the term from its definition, then find it in the grid. The term appears in the list once you find it.

On iPhone, clues show one at a time. Use the arrows to move between them, or tap All clues to see the full list.

Expert puzzles always use clue mode. Puzzles you make can use it at any level.

Tap Hint to ring the first letter of the next term on your list. In clue mode, the hint doesn’t say which term it is. Hints don’t add time, but they’re counted: finish a puzzle without any to earn a clean run.

It keeps the same terms and puts them in fresh positions, so you learn the words and not the grid. If you’ve already found some terms, the app asks first, because your found terms reset.

Yes. In Settings, turn off Show timer. When the timer is on, it only counts while the puzzle is on screen, so leaving the app pauses it.

Tap Resume under “Pick up where you left off” on the home screen. The app keeps one game in progress at a time, so starting a different puzzle replaces it.

1. On the home screen, tap Make a puzzle. (The puzzle maker is part of Full Access.)
2. Give the puzzle a name and pick a difficulty. Turn on Clue mode if you want the list to show definitions instead of terms.
3. Type a term and its definition and tap Add, or tap Upload list to add terms from a file. To add several terms without definitions at once, separate them with commas.
4. Check the preview, tap Shuffle for a different layout if you like, and tap Save and play.

Saved puzzles appear under Your puzzles on the home screen, and under My puzzles in the Library.

• A .txt, .csv or .tsv file, up to 200 KB.
• One term per line, with its definition after a tab, a comma, a dash or a colon. Most flashcard apps can export a set with a tab between the term and the definition.
• A single line of terms separated by commas also works, for terms without definitions.
• Up to 20 terms per puzzle, each with 3 to 16 letters. Spaces and punctuation are dropped in the grid, so “cell wall” becomes CELLWALL.
• Definitions can be up to 160 characters. Longer ones are shortened, and the app tells you.

For example:

Allele	One version of a gene
Mutation	A change in a DNA sequence
Genotype	The alleles an organism carries

A header row that starts with “term” or “word” is skipped. Terms that are too short, too long, repeated or over the limit are skipped too, and the app says how many.

Clue mode needs a definition for every term, because the definition is the clue. Add the missing definitions, or turn clue mode off.

The grid grows up to 16 × 16 to make room for long lists. If terms still don’t fit, remove a few or pick a harder level, which lets terms run in more directions.

When one term is inside another, like CELL inside CELLWALL, the shorter term can show up twice: once on its own and once inside the longer term. Only one of them is the answer, so if a line doesn’t highlight, look for the other one.

In the Library, choose My puzzles, then tap the ⋯ button on the puzzle’s card and choose Edit or Delete. Deleting can’t be undone. You can also tap Edit puzzle on the results screen after you finish one of your puzzles.

Eight subject puzzles are free at every level, with at least one in each area. Full Access is a one-time purchase that unlocks all 31 subjects and the puzzle maker. There’s no subscription, and there are no ads.

To buy it, tap Unlock Full Access on the home screen, or open any locked puzzle in the Library. The App Store shows the price in your local currency.

Make sure you’re signed in to the App Store with the same Apple Account you used to buy Full Access. Then open Settings in the app and tap Restore purchase, or tap Restore purchase on the Full Access screen. Restoring is free.

If the app says no purchase was found, check which Apple Account you’re signed in with.

This happens when Ask to Buy is on for your Apple Account through Family Sharing. Full Access turns on as soon as the family organizer approves the purchase.

Buying and restoring need an internet connection. Check your connection and try again. Puzzles you already have keep working offline.

Apple handles all payments and refunds for apps from the App Store, so we can’t issue refunds directly. You can request one at reportaproblem.apple.com.

If Full Access is refunded, the puzzles you made stay saved, but you can’t play or edit them unless you buy Full Access again.

In Settings, check that Sounds (a short chime for each term you find) and Haptics (a light tap) are on. For sounds, also check that your device’s volume is up and it isn’t muted. Haptics work on iPhone only, because iPad doesn’t have a vibration motor.

In Settings, tap Reset progress. This clears best times and your saved game for every puzzle. Puzzles you made stay saved.

On iPad, WordSprouts Scholar plays in landscape so the grid and the term list fit side by side. On iPhone, it plays in portrait. On iPad, it also needs the full screen, so it doesn’t run in Split View or Slide Over.

Yes. Every letter in the grid reads out its letter, row and column. To mark a term, select its first letter and then its last. Finds and hints are announced. The app also follows Reduce Motion and supports larger text sizes outside the grid.

No. For privacy, WordSprouts Scholar has no accounts and keeps everything on your device, so progress and the puzzles you make aren’t synced and are removed if you delete the app. A Full Access purchase can always be restored (see above).

No. Every puzzle works offline. The app only connects to the App Store when you buy or restore Full Access.