Software

Software plays a major role in organized SCRABBLE® activities.

NASPA's Web Committee offers web hosting space to software developers, and works with them to develop standards.

The Technology Committee evaluates and certifies word judge software for use at tournaments and clubs.

NASPA also licenses the NASPA Word List and NASPA School Word List for use by developers.

Certification and licensing are separate processes; software may be either, neither, or both. Uncertified, unlicensed software is listed here only for information purposes, and not as an endorsement.

Certified word judge software

NASPA recommends that tournaments and clubs use laptops running word adjudication software to process challenges in competitive games. The following Software Self Lookup (SSL) programs were evaluated by the Technology Committee and are approved for use in club and tournament situations as noted below.

Zyzzyva

• Features: anagramming, definitions, word judge, word study
• Developers: Michael Thelen, Ross Brown
• Systems: Linux, macOS, Windows
• Notes: certified and licensed, used at all major events,including the National SCRABBLE Championship, National School SCRABBLE Championship and Canadian National SCRABBLE Championship

WHAT

• Features: anagramming, word judge
• Developer: Mike Wolfberg
• System: Windows
• Notes: Certified and licensed. Stands for "Wolfberg's Helpful Anagramming Tool".

Tournament management software

Tournament management software assists the director in pairing players, recording game results, generating pairing reports and standings for printing, and generating final tournament data for submission to NASPA for rating of tournaments. There is not yet a certification process for this category of software.

There is at least one popular software package not listed below, at the request of its publisher.

tsh

• Features: tournament management, word judge
• Developer: John Chew
• Systems: DOS, Linux, macOS and Windows.
• Notes: used at all major events, including the National SCRABBLE Championship, National School SCRABBLE Championship and Canadian National SCRABBLE Championship. It has a very rich set of features, but most directors need some help at first learning to use its command-line interface.

Licensed software

The following software contain licensed copies of NASPA word lists, but have not been certified for competitive use.

Hoot

• Features: anagramming, word judge, word study
• Developer: Dana Bell
• Systems: Android, Windows
• Notes: Licensed, but not certified as a competitive word judge tool.

Wali Timer

• Features: anagramming, game timer, word judge
• Developer: Wali Khubaib
• Systems: Android
• Notes: Licensed, but not certified as a competitive word judge tool or game timer.

Word Up Dude

• Features: word game
• Developer: Tim Gardner
• Systems: Android, iOS
• Notes: Licensed to use official word lists in its own word game.

Unlicensed software

The following software is neither certified nor licensed, but may be of interest to our members.

Aerolith

• Features: word study
• Developer: Cesar Del Solar
• Systems: web app
• Notes: License pending. Features competitive high-score lists.

Quackle

• Features: anagramming, game analysis, game play
• Developers: Jason Katz-Brown, John O'Laughlin, John Fultz
• Systems: Linux, macOS, Windows
• Notes: License pending. Strongest SCRABBLE playing program in the world. It is used by many players for training, and to analyze their games to improve their future play.

qz

• Features: word study
• Developer: John Chew
• Systems: Linux, macOS, Windows
• Notes: Unlicensed. Generic flashcarding tool intended for word study, does not ship with word lists, supports bulk input of quiz text files

ULU

• Features: anagramming, game timer, word judge
• Developer: Seth Lipkin
• System: iOS
• Notes: License pending. Not certified for use a word judge or game timer.

Legacy Software

Software that is no longer actively supported, or has not been updated to current standards, can be found in a separate list of legacy software.