13 July 2023

Make your own Worlde in Office and Word

Peter Deegan Fonts, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office for Mac, Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Word, Office 2007, Office 2010, Office 2013, Office 2016, Office 2019, Office 2021 / Office LTSC, Office 365

Make your own Wordle grids in Microsoft Office, Word, PowerPoint or Excel. Choose the right font, colors (the exact green, yellow or grey) plus grid details including blank or unfilled boxes.

Wordle was originally a standalone app, created by Josh Wardle . It’s now owned and run by The New York Times, though the look of the game hasn’t changed in any significant way.

A Wordle grid can be made with a table in Word, PowerPoint or Excel. Use it to display an example game or, as we’ve done, use it as a design base.

Normally, Wordle is five letters across, but extra letters can be added if necessary.

Font

Wordle looks a little different depending on the device you’re using, because different fonts are used. There’s a preferred font but that’s not usually installed so other fonts are recommended, and those fonts are preinstalled on devices.

For Windows computers it’s ‘Arial’ – Microsoft’s version of Helvetica.

On a Mac or Apple devices, Wordle uses ‘Helvetica Neue’.

Clear Sans is the preferred Worlde font and is a free download from many sites including https://www.1001fonts.com/clear-sans-font.html or grab it from Github.

In other words, the font stack for NYT Wordle is, in order:

Clear Sans (not usually installed but the preferred font)
Helvetica Neue (this is what Apple devices will use)
Arial (Windows devices)
Sans-serif

Android devices won’t usually have any of the named fonts so it’ll use “Roboto” which is the Android default sans-serif font.

For those of us who know a little CSS/HTML, the NYT Wordle site has this line

font-family: 'Clear Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;

Note: in some reports it suggests that The New York Times uses the font “Karnak Condensed” for Wordle lettering. We’ve checked the current NYT version of Worlde and it’s definitely using the fonts listed above.

We’ll use Clear Sans Regular for our examples, though for occasional need either Arial or Helvetica Neue (installed with Windows or Mac) are fine.

Wordle Colours or Colors

We’ve delved into the Wordle site to check the exact colors used as # Hex color codes which are supported in modern Office apps. In the color selector, go to the Custom tab then type/paste into the Hex: box.

Boxes

Wordle boxes are usually square — they can be narrower and taller in narrow web pages or smartphones but are mostly square.

Make a Wordle Table

To make a Wordle looking grid using the Table features in Word or PowerPoint.

Each row is made up of five square cells (1” or 2.54cm) plus narrower cells (width 0.11” or 0.28cm) for spacing.

For letter rows there are no cell borders. Use cell shading to fill in the color for the letter boxes (see color palette above).

Alignment of text within the cell is Centered both horizontally and vertically at Layout | Alignment | Align Center.

Once you’ve made one row that’s exactly right, copy that row to make more in same table. That ensures the cell settings remain the same. For each new letter row, copy to add TWO rows:

One row for spacing. Remove all formatting from that row so it’s entirely blank/white then reduce the row height, about 0.08” or 0.20cm.
The new letter row.

Here’s a Wordle table with gridlines showing so the blank, spacing row is visible.

Once you’ve made a letter row and a thin spacer row, you can copy them down the table.

Yes, you could add the blank rows manually, without copying, but copying the rows ensures the columns line up and can be changed if necessary.

Filled Worlde Boxes

For each letter box change the cell shading or fill color. Select the cell then Table Design | Shading | More Colors.

Yellow (right letter, wrong position aka Present) #c9b458

Green (right letter and position aka Correct) #6aaa64

Wrong (letter not used aka Absent) #787c7e

Letters

Letters – White #ffffff

Letters typed in an incomplete row – Black #000000

Unfilled Wordle boxes

For unfilled boxes, copy a letter row and the blank spacer row. Remove all cell shading so the letter boxes are plain white.

Set the border by selecting one letter cell then go to Table Design | Borders | Borders and Shading (at the bottom of the long menu)

Style: plain line (top of the list)
Color #D3D6DA
Width 2.25pt
Click in the Preview window to setup the four borders.
Apply to: Cell — make sure it’s just ‘Cell’ not the whole table!

Tips:

Turn on View Gridlines from the Layout tab so you can see what you’re doing.
Once you’ve setup the borders for one cell, use the Table Design | Border Painter to copy the border settings to other cells.

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