What large print means in our puzzles

A word search is only as easy on the eyes as its grid. Titles, covers and word lists can look generous while the letters inside the puzzle stay small. When you are choosing a book or a printable for yourself, or for someone whose sight has changed, it is the grid letters that matter. Those are the marks your eyes rest on for the whole activity.

This page is about the puzzles sold and played under the name Mabel Hartwell. It is not a medical guide, and it does not set a rule for every publisher. It tells you the sizes we set, the typeface we use, and a simple way to check a printed page at home.

The sizes we set

We measured the grid letters from our own PDF files, not from a cover or a marketing thumbnail. The extra-large-print pack uses Atkinson Hyperlegible Bold at 30.0 point for every letter in the grid. The Christmas pack uses 21-point letters. Both packs put one puzzle on a US Letter page, with the word list beside or below the grid and the answers at the back.

Kenyan shilling amounts are rounded estimates at the Central Bank of Kenya mid-rate of 129.95 shillings to the US dollar, posted 11 November 2026. Gumroad charges in US dollars.

We use Atkinson Hyperlegible because it was drawn to keep letters distinct from one another — a capital I does not look like a lowercase l, and the openings in letters such as e and a stay clear. It is published under the SIL Open Font License. The same typeface is used on this site.

How to print a page at the size it was designed

A PDF can look large on a screen and still shrink on paper if the printer is set to fit the page. That setting is useful for posters. It is unhelpful for large-print puzzles, because it quietly reduces the type you bought the file for.

1. Open the PDF and choose a single puzzle page, or use the Print button on the free puzzle.
2. Set the paper size to US Letter (8.5 × 11 inches). If your printer uses A4, do not scale the page to fill the sheet; keep 100 percent / actual size and accept a slightly wider margin.
3. Turn off “fit to page”, “shrink to fit” and any paper-size scaling. The scale should read 100 percent or “actual size”.
4. Print in black and white or colour; the grids are high-contrast either way. Use ordinary white paper if you can. Very thin paper lets the next page show through.
5. Look at one capital letter in the printed grid. If it looks smaller than it did on screen, check the print dialogue again before you print the rest of the pack.

You can also hold the printed grid next to a page of type you already find comfortable, such as a large-print novel or a letter. Comfort is personal. If the grid still feels small, the extra-large-print pack at 30 point is the larger of our two downloads, and the on-screen puzzle on this site is free to try first.

What to look at before you buy any puzzle book

When you can, look at an interior page, not only the cover. Ask three questions:

• How large are the letters inside the grid, not just the title?
• Does each puzzle have a page to itself, with room to write or to rest a finger on the paper?
• Which way do the words run? Diagonals and backwards words make a denser hunt. Every Hartwell word search places words only across or straight down, so the path is a straight line.

If you cannot see a sample page, a free trial is the honest test. The puzzle on this homepage is generated in your browser from everyday word lists — gardens, kitchens, birds, bakeries and other familiar themes. Nothing is uploaded, and you do not need an account. Print one page, sit with it, and then decide whether a full pack would be useful.

The printable packs

Both packs are instant US Letter PDFs. You may print as many copies as you need for your own household. Please do not share or resell the file.

Paperbacks of Mabel Hartwell’s word search books are also listed on Amazon, but confirmed amazon.com addresses were not on hand when this page was built, so they are not linked here.