Quick Start

When Zyzzyva starts for the first time, it will ask you which lexicons it should load automatically. By default, it loads only the NWL2020 lexicon. If you'd like to use other lexicons, choose them from the list. Your preferred lexicons can be changed at any time by clicking the Preferences button on the Zyzzyva toolbar.

Note: If you're upgrading from a previous version of Zyzzyva, it will load only the lexicons you used before, so you should edit your Lexicon preferences to tell it to load your favorite new lexicons.

Once you have the correct lexicons loaded, just decide what you would like to do (take a quiz, search for words, use the word judge, etc.). Here's how you can do some of the more useful things in Zyzzyva.

To search for words, click the Search button on the toolbar. A new tab will appear that allows you to find the words you're looking for. You can search for words matching certain patterns, anagrams, and many other special conditions. For details about what kinds of searches you can do, and how to do them, see Searching for Words.

To quiz yourself on words, click the Quiz button on the toolbar. A window will appear that lets you decide what words you would like to be quizzed on. Deciding what words you'd like to be quizzed on is exactly like searching for those words themselves, so see Searching for Words for more details about that. For more details about what kinds of quizzes you can take, see Quizzes.

To use the full screen Word Judge, click the Word Judge button on the toolbar. Follow the on-screen instructions to perform word adjudications. To leave the full screen Word Judge, hold the Shift key and press ESC. Also, if you just press ESC, exit instructions will appear on the screen.

Anywhere you see a list of words in Zyzzyva, you can generally right-click on the list and do some useful things. The two most useful options are to save the word list to a file, and to start a quiz based on the word list. See Working with Word Tables the word list. You can also sort the list in various ways by clicking on the headers. See Working with Word Tables for more details.

Many aspects of Zyzzyva are customizable, and it would be worth your time to click the Preferences button on the toolbar and explore the available options. For details about what preference settings are available, see Preferences.

If you have questions that are not answered in this Help documentation, please send them to the NASPA Zyzzyva Committee mailing list. There are people on that list who generally respond quickly and helpfully to most questions.


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