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Downloadable Anagram Software
Here is a fairly comprehensive list of downloadable anagram programs, ranging from highly sophisticated down to very basic, and includes freeware, shareware and commercial software.
Quick links:
Anagram Artist or Anagram Genius?
Compare the top two!Recommendations are in GREEN
Commercial type of software is in ORANGE
Software platform is in RED
Link to the website is in BLUEPlease note:
Prices quoted below for commercial software and shareware may be inaccurate. Please check the appropriate website or email the author for current prices.Updated: November 03, 2007
Dead links removed.
Anagram Artist 3.05 for Windows
by Mike Keith
Highly recommended
Freeware
Windows 98, XP
Visit the websiteAnagram Artist 3.05 is a very impressive package that incorporates many features, such as a suggested word list, word filters, a synonym finder, a built-in anagram generator and many other useful extras.
It is an all-in-one tool designed for medium-to-long anagramming. As you type, the program continually offers a list of suggested words (sorted by how well they bring the unused letters into alignment with the ideal English letter frequencies). There is also a visual and numeric display of the letters remaining and of the proportion of vowels.
It supports parts of speech (so you can ask for only adjectives, for example), and has a rhyme finder to facilitate the construction of anagrammed poetry.
When you get to the last 25 letters a built-in anagram generator is available. This, in combination with the suggested word list and filters, makes Anagram Artist a powerful tool for finding short anagrams as well.
It is a 3.2 MB download. It works with Windows 98 and XP; it might work on Windows ME. It may not work on Windows 95, NT or 2000.
Winner of the Best Anagram Software in the Grand Anagrammy Awards every year since 2001.
We are proud to announce that this software is available exclusively from the Anagrammy website:
Click here for full details, improvements in Version 3.05, registration and download.
Compare it with Anagram Genius
Anagrammy Team Recommendation:
In our opinion, it is the complete anagramming tool! Perfect for medium to long anagrams, but is also more than adequate for short anagrams. And it is free!
Anagram Genius Version 9
by William Tunstall-Pedoe
Highly Recommended
Commercial Software
Version 9 -Windows
Version 8 - Macintosh
Visit the websiteAnagram Genius is an excellent piece of software and is reasonably priced.
One of the main differences between Anagram Genius and other anagram software is that it allows you to describe in detail the text (Male, Female, Business, Satire, Flattery etc.) as well as (optionally) the relevance of individual words. The software then scores the anagrams it finds, selecting those which it thinks are most likely to be relevant and meaningful based on the information that you have provided and its knowledge of English.
This approach has the advantage that much less manual scanning of the output is required: you can choose to keep only the best 500 or so anagrams if you wish.
You may first wish to try out the free Windows version before you upgrade to the full commercial version. It works for 15 runs or one month (whichever comes first) but lacks some of the features of the full version. A free evaluation copy can be downloaded here.
You can buy the latest Windows and MacOS versions of Anagram Genius online here, using a credit card. The price is $US39.95 or £24.99. Existing customers looking for upgrade information should go here.
Version Nine involves radical improvements to almost every aspect of the software. Full details of the software can be found here.
- A completely new user interface. The window can now be maximised to the full size of the screen and many many more anagrams and subwords can be seen at once.
- Improved anagram generation. The lexicon is now 150000 words and phrases.
- Integration with the Anagram Genius archive. All the thousands of brilliant anagrams in the archive are now displayed by the software and you can submit your own new discoveries for consideration directly from within the program!
- Compulsory words. Words can be made compulsory so they will appear in all anagrams. This is an extremely effective method for finding highly relevant anagrams and making anagrams of very long subjects.
- Weeded anagrams and subword changes are preserved. The software now allows you to build up the weeded list over several attempts. Changes you make to the subwords of one subject can even be applied to another closely related subject.
- Multiple custom dictionaries. Instead of just a few categories and a single "user dictionary", you can now have any number of custom dictionaries supporting a potentially infinite number of categories and even enabling some support for other languages!
Compare it with Anagram Artist
Anagrammy Team Recommendation:
This is brilliant for shorter anagrams, especially with people's names. The new version is a huge advance on the previous version and offers many new helpful features.
Try it, then buy it! Click the link here.
Anagrams 2.4 for Macintosh
by Andrew Trevorrow and Nick Spencer
Recommended
Shareware
Macintosh OS8.6 to OSX
Visit the websiteAnagrams 2.4 is a fast and friendly anagram generator for the Mac. The main design goal was to make it fun and easy to find interesting anagrams for any given text. Anagrams has a number of useful features.
Various options can restrict the search for usable words and anagrams. For example, you can specify the size of usable words and number of words in the anagram. While anagrams are being generated you can copy any interesting ones (for pasting into your text editor) or you can drag anagrams straight into a drag-savvy editor.
The supplied new word list of 40,000 words can be modified. A dialog box lets you find, add or delete words. You can also ask Anagrams to read a given text file and automatically add any new words found; this is very handy for creating a new word list from scratch. Word lists contain user-definable characters. The default character set includes accented letters and other 8-bit characters used in most languages based on the Roman script. Note that additional word lists are available to registered users on request.
You can build up a "tree" of selected usable words. All paths in the tree are prefixes for potential anagrams. This is very useful when finding anagrams for long phrases. Trees can be filed away for later recall. The latest version has a new sophisticated search facility to help find keywords that you want in your anagram, easier switching between word lists, and several other improvements.
The shareware fee for Anagrams is $20 using the Kagi Online Order system.
Anagrammy Team Recommendation:
If you have a Mac, this is the one for you. Not as clever as Anagram Artist and Anagram Genius V.9, but good for short to medium anagramming.
Download it now, then register it!
WordSword for Macintosh
by Rob Steward
Trailware/Commercial Software - $25.00
Macintosh OS 10.2 or above
Visit the websiteWordSword has four different modes:
- Anagrams:
Find letter patterns and solve crosswords.
- Crosswords:
Solve jumbled words.
- Dictionary:
Find anagram words and phrases.
- Thesaurus:
Lookup definitions and synonyms.
The purchase price for WordSword is $25 using the Kagi Online Order system.
FART (Free Anagram Research Tool) 6.0 (Previously known as SATER)
by Onno Zweers
Recommended
Freeware
Cross-platform (javascript)
Visit the websiteThis program differs from true anagram generators in that it does not have a word list and therefore cannot create anagrams automatically. Instead, it assists in the manual creation of anagrams by keeping a tally of the remaining letters.
FART is an online and offline anagram checker that it is written in javascript. It is also very useful for creating long anagrams when combined with an anagram generator. It will check your anagram and tell you which letters are still left. It will also give you a list of suggested wirds from the remaining letters.
You can save your anagrams for copying and pasting. A cookie will allow you to store your previous anagrams.
You can copy the html & javascript code, save it as a text file and modify it if you want. Then you can open it from your favourite browser and run it as an off-line checker whenever you like. It works best in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Wordplay 7.22
by Evans A. Criswell
Shareware
Unix & DOS
Visit the websiteWordplay is one of the oldest anagram programs around, version 1.00 dating from 1991. The current version is Version 7.22 (20-Mar-96).
It is a simple but versatile program that forms the basis of a number of well-known online anagram generators.
Ulf Lunde has adapted Wordplay to produce anagrams in Norwegian. A copy can be obtained by sending email to him at Ulf.Lunde@kvatro.no
Anagram Generator
by Jason Rampe
Commercial Software (Trailware for 50 days)
Windows 9x, Windows NT and Windows 2000
Visit the websiteAnagram Generator includes dictionary files to support anagram generation in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.
New features include a crossword solver to help solving crosswords, a palindrome finder, a reverse dictionary generator and a phone anagram generator.
You can download a trial version of this application. The trial version is identical to the registered version in features. This allows you to fully evaluate if this software meets your needs before commiting to a purchase. Registration for the full version is only $19.95 AUD (approx $10 US).
Anagrams
by Kim Moser
Shareware
DOS & Windows
Visit the websiteAnagrams is a DOS program but it runs under Windows as well. It has multiple options, including varying number of words, word length and too many others to list here.
A registered version of Anagrams costs $10.00. This will get you a larger dictionary (over 135,000 words) and other features.
Anagram Ferret v1j
by David Hooper
Freeware
Windows
Visit the websiteAnagram Ferret is a highly configurable anagram finder that can use any text file as a dictionary. Anagram Ferret is a single file with a readme. There's no installation, no changes to the registry and no registration boxes. Anagram Ferret is free and fully functional. Dictionaries are also available for download.
Maanrag 2.0
by Onno Zweers
Freeware
Windows
Visit the websiteMaanrag is a free Dutch anagram generator for Windows. It has a word list of 180,000 Dutch words and can also import other word lists.
Anagram Master
by James Garton
Freeware
Windows
Visit the websiteAnagram Master quickly solves anagram puzzles using a large English dictionary. It is useful for solving anagram problems, scrabble, word yahtzee, word poker and a few other word games and puzzles.
You can input any length of anagram and select the size of words to search for. It uses a word list containing 80,000 words (includes plurals). It contains Bristish and American spellings for words. You can also replace the word list with your own; if for example you wanted to search for words without plurals, or even use a completely different language!
It is very simple to use, has a small file size, and there's no need to install: just unzip into any directory and run from there.
Anagram Finder
by John Walker
Freeware
Windows
Visit the websiteAnagram Finder finds anagrams or permutations of words in the target phrase. If one or more seed words is given, only anagrams containing all of those words will be shown. The target and seed may be specified by options or CGI program environment variables as well as on the command line.
