Windows Phone Thoughts: Trancreative's Wordbook v3 Reviewed

Looking For The Right Words
Word searching is one of the strongest features of WordBook and will be a Godsend for any ardent word puzzlers out there. On the search page there are four tabs which relate to the type of search you wish to perform, the first of which is anagram. Here you can enter a word or a selection of letters and wildcards and find all other possible words using the given combination of letters. Puzzle lets you look up words with wildcards, which is great when looking for the possible answer to a crossword or similar puzzle. Wildcard searching is very powerful in that it allows you to use multiple combinations of wildcards to replace individual or multiple letters as well as grouped choices of possible letter combinations. With a little learning you can quickly look up all possible words with very complex letter combinations. The final search option is phonetic and this quite simply displays all results that sound similar to what you have entered. I was very impressed with this feature as it proved very accurate in displaying words during my testing and is ideal for looking up words you have heard of without knowing the correct spelling. All search results are displayed back on the main screen with the Search Results menu option now highlighted.


Figure 6: I never could spell so searching is a big bonus.


Figure 7: And best of all it works beautifully.

Other menu options include Study list which is a configurable number of random words that can be added to the list automatically each day or added manually by selecting a word and then tapping the small check list icon at the top of the screen. This is a handy way of learning new words and the list can be managed by a small pop-up menu that allows you to clear the entire list or individual words that you have learned. Favourites works similar to Study list, but words are added manually by tapping the star icon at the top of the screen and is intended as a more permanent word list although it carries the same management options as the study list. Last viewed shows a history of words looked up and can be cleared easily at any time using the pop-up menu. Propping up the menu options is the word of the day function. This is another handy feature that is designed to teach you new words by displaying a fresh, random word each day. Should you look up this word – a new one replaces it, meaning you can use this feature to teach you many new words if you have some spare time and is a welcome option.


Figure 8: Study list keeps a record of the words you are currently learning.


Figure 9: Managing any of the custom lists is straight forward.