Strand’s NYT tips, spangram and answer for today, November 2, 2024

If you’re looking for Strands hints and answers for Saturday, November 2, 2024, read on. I will share some clues and tips, and finally the solution to the puzzle with the theme ‘Good on paper’.

For an easy way to come back to our Strands tips every day: bookmark this page. You can also find our previous hints there, in case you want to find out what you missed in a previous puzzle.

Below I’ll give you some indirect hints about today’s Strands answers. And further down the page I reveal the spangram and answers. Scroll slowly and take only the hints you need!

Credit: Strands/NYT

Hint for the spangram in today’s Strands puzzle

Two words for the kind of things you might need to buy for school or for your desk at work.

Hint for the theme words in today’s Strands puzzle

Things you can use to modify paper in some way, whether it’s cutting it, drawing on it, sticking it to other sheets of paper, etc.

WARNING: Spoilers follow for today’s Strands puzzle!

We’re about to give away the answers to today’s Strands puzzle.

What is the spangram in the Strands today?

Today’s spangram is OFFICE SUPPLIES.

What are the theme words in today’s Strands?

Today’s theme words are: STAPLER, PRINTER, SCISSORS, PENCILS, RULER.

This is what the board looks like when the puzzle is solved:

Credit: Strands/NYT

How I solved today’s Strands

“Good on paper” usually refers to something that sounds good in theory but doesn’t work in practice, but I feel like it’s not so metaphorical these days. What are some things that are literally good on paper? My thoughts immediately go to foods like burgers and fries, which are often served in a basket lined with parchment paper.

Ah, there’s the word SCISSORS at the bottom left, and it’s a bull’s-eye. 🔵SCISSORS are indeed good at cutting paper, so perhaps we are looking for other things that interact with paper, such as pens, pencils, etc.

Look, PENCILS is immediately to the right. 🔵

RULER is above that. 🔵

I see the word CLIP and CLIPS, but they are not theme words.

I can almost make ERASER, but I only get ERASURE, which isn’t quite the same.

Oh, I see the word SUPPLIES, which is definitely part of the spangram.

PRINTER is located in the upper right corner. 🔵

There it is: OFFICE DELIVERIES. 🟡 That’s one curvy spangram!

Finally STAPLER. 🔵

Strands #244
“Good on paper”
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🟡🔵

How do you play Strands?

You can find the Strands game on the New York Times website and on the NYT Games app.

When you start playing, you’ll see a game board with a series of letters flanked by a clue that gives a hint as to the theme of the board. This will be a sentence, such as ‘Better with age’. Your task is to find the hidden words on the board that reflect the theme of the puzzle.

A crossword puzzle crossed with a word search

The most important word you need to find is the ‘spangram’, a word that more explicitly represents the theme of the puzzle. (For example, the spangram for the “Better with Age” puzzle is FERMENTED, which describes products that, you guessed it, get better with age.) The spangram covers the entire game board, from left to right or top down (hence the name). When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted in yellow. Solving the spangram usually makes the rest of the puzzle much easier to complete.

In Strands, words can travel in any direction (up, down, left, right, and diagonal), and you only use each letter once. There is only one correct solution. When you correctly identify one of the words of the puzzle (for example KOMBUCHA, MISO or KIMCHI), it will be highlighted in blue.

If you’re having trouble solving the puzzle, you can submit any non-theme words you see (as long as they are four letters or more) to get points for a single hint. If you submit three non-theme words, the ‘Hint’ button can be clicked; if you click on it, all the letters in one of the theme words will be highlighted for you. You will still have to link these highlighted letters in the correct order to form one of the theme words. If there is already a hint on the board and you use another hint before solving that word, the letter order of that word is revealed.

How to Win Strands

Unlike Connections and Wordle, you can’t make Strands fail. When you submit guesses, you correctly identify an answer, receive credit for a hint, or shuffle the text back and forth, indicating that the word you submitted is too short or not valid. You can’t run out of guesses, and there’s no time limit.

You win if you use all the letters on the board correctly, which means you have identified the spangram and all the theme words. As with other NYT games, when you solve the puzzle you will see a shareable card showing how you performed that day: blue dots 🔵 indicate theme words you found, the yellow dot 🟡 shows when you found the spangram , and a light bulb 💡 indicates words for which you have received a hint.