If you have a list of words that you’d like to use with Custom Hangman, you do not have to type them into your iPhone or iPod Touch.  You can just enter them on this website and then use the 3 or 4 digit Share Code to download the words into your phone.  Or give that code to anyone else so they can play hangman with your word list, on this website or on their device. Teachers can use this method to teach students spelling and vocabulary, for their native tongue or a new language.

To use an example, I will show you how to make a word list from the Most common words in English according to this page on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English).

First, you need to get the words, and optionally, definitions, in a simple plain text format:  One word per line, if your list includes definitions, then the definition follows the word on the same line, separated by a tab.

I’m gong to use the popularity ranks as the definitions for this example.

First, I copy the words by selecting the tables of words on the web page and pressing Command-C (Control C on Windows) to copy them.

There are many ways to do the next part, get the words into the proper format.  I’d love to read your comments about how you would do it.  Here’s one way.

Paste the words into a new Excel spreadsheet. You will get two columns that look like this:

Then cut the left column and paste it into the column after the words to get the right order (word, definition) on each line.

Then delete the rows with the table headings from the web page (“Rank”, “Word”).

Then, still in Excel, File -> Save As, select Format Tab Delimited Text.

Now just open this file in your favorite editor, delete the blank lines at the bottom, select all the text, and copy it with Command-C (Mac) or Control C (Windows).

Then in your browser go to this page: Share Your Word List (you can find it in the menu on right column of this web site), paste your text into the Words text area.  Fill out the other fields and click submit.

You will see a confirmation message with your Share Code like this:

List added successfully:
Most common English words
Share Code: 768

Please comment if you have any questions.

Now you can use your own word lists or one of our public word lists to play hangman on this website.

Check it out in the top menu.

Let us know what you think.

Thanks to Tracie at StudioImagen.com for coming up with a whole new fun and original design for the graphics in this game.  Just waiting for approval from iTunes.

Here’s one of the new game play graphics: