Zyzzyva

Zyzzyva is a word study and word adjudication program created by Michael Thelen, purchased by NASPA in September 2014. Inquiries about the program should be directed to the Zyzzyva Committee.

Zyzzyva is freely available to anyone and runs under Linux, Windows 98 or later, and Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or later on a 64-bit (Intel Core 2 Duo or later) processor.

The newest version of Zyzzyva, version 3.0.4, which includes OTCWL2014 (for NASPA members only) and other lexicons, is now available from the link below for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux machines.

There is a separate iOS app version of Zyzzyva, developed for the now dated iOS 6. Soon after our acquisition of Zyzzyva, we learned that its iOS app is not compatible with iOS 8. After we have released the next version of the desktop Zyzzyva app, we will work on an iOS 8-compatible version of the mobile Zyzzyva app, which we are hoping will be available early in 2015. We then intend to discontinue the Lite version of the mobile app to continue only with the full version, which will be repriced as a free app. Please watch for an announcement about the next iOS version of Zyzzyva in the near future.

Zyzzyva has been used at software self-lookup stations at many North American SCRABBLE tournaments, including BAT, Oregon TILE, the Dallas Open, the National SCRABBLE Championship, National School SCRABBLE Championship, the Canadian National SCRABBLE Championship and the World SCRABBLE Championship.

Protected Lexicon Information

Merriam-Webster has required encryption of the OTCWL2014, SSWL2015 and OSPD5 lexicons within Zyzzyva. In order to support this encryption, NASPA Zyzzyva has built-in deadlines, as follows:

Version 3.0.3 - this version will cease to work on May 1, 2015. Please upgrade to the latest version prior to that date.

Version 3.0.4 - this version has two deadlines built into it, as follows:

• when you claim a license for a protected lexicon, the license will remain in effect until the expiry date of your NASPA membership at that point in time. When you later renew your NASPA membership, you should update the license to extend the deadline. You can manage your license from the Tools --> Manage Licenses menu in the program.
• periodically, the program will require the ability to check-in with the NASPA server and activate the license (for general users, this lasts one month, with an additional one-month grace period). If the check-in is not performed, the program will only allow the protected lexicons to be used for word judging, until such time as the check-in completes successfully.

Obtaining a license and activating the license with the check-in process require internet access. If you need to install the protected lexicons on a machine without internet access, please contact info@scrabbleplayers.org for information about off-line activation.

Installation Instructions

For step-by-step installation instructions, see:

• NASPA Zyzzyva OS X Installation
• NASPA Zyzzyva Windows Installation
• NASPA Zyzzyva Linux Installation

Please note that as of May 6 2015, Norton Antivirus has incorrectly flagged Zyzzyva 3.0.4 as suspicious. As such, Norton users must train the antivirus software to ignore the folder where Zyzzyva lives (which is either C:\Program Files\NASPA Zyzzyva 3.0.4 or C:\Program Files (x86)\NASPA Zyzzyva 3.0.4, on Windows). Here is a good summary of how you to do so: http://antivirus.about.com/od/securitytips/ht/excludefilesfromnorton.htm

External links

Zyzzyva home page

Zyzzyva version 3.0.4 Windows and OS X download