[melling]

I added a Word Search to many language learning apps. See middle picture top:

http://www.h4labs.com

I basically brute forced it and simply skipped words that I couldn't fit. I'd love to hear ideas from other implementations. At some point I'm going to make the grid size dynamic when I rewrite a better version for the iPad.

[jamis]

Backtracking works well to try and fit words in tightly, but (especially in cases where the words just BARELY fit) it can take a long time to generate the puzzles. I'm sure that judicious use of heuristics could prune unprofitable branches more quickly and speed things up, but I've not explored those optimizations at all.