How Do People Analyze Handwriting?

We often exclaim how beautiful someone’s handwriting is, how the letters are all well spaced, how beautifully the letters are formed and so on; then we take a look at our own handwriting and breathe an exasperated sigh. Many of us may have spent years and had our parents spend much of their hard-earned money on cursive writing books to get that to-die-for handwriting, but it all failed. However, we never thought that the person’s handwriting could say a lot about their personality, their moods, and their temperaments. We never guessed that people’s handwritings – no matter how beautiful of squiggly it may look like – could more or less pose as a window to their inner selves. But what we do not know is that for people whose profession is to study handwriting – who are known as graphologists – this science is all in a day’s work. Here are some basic guidelines they follow when it comes to handwriting analysis.

Handwriting Analysis

Below are some pointers that people keep in mind while analyzing handwriting:

Angle
People pay attention to the angle or slant of the handwriting to get to know the person’s emotional responsiveness. Here are some pointers:

A steady right slant is an indicator of unrepressed attitudes, self-confidence, self-assertiveness, occasional insensitivity and tactlessness, comfort in social gatherings; in all, a generally positive approach towards life.
A steady slant to the left denotes the fact that the person thinks before acting, loves to be left on his own, is uncomfortable in crowds and social gatherings, and had probably had a troubled childhood or early life. The person with a steadily left slanting handwriting is known to control his feelings.
The person who writes without a slant that is, his handwriting is steadily upright is a good ‘actor’ and can easily hide his emotions; he exercises restraint and is known to be observant rather than participating. Since this person is not too impulsive, he is highly reliable and consistent.
Though this phenomenon is rare, but a person whose handwriting is a mixture of all these is confused, unpredictable, inconsistent and ambiguous. He or she may have difficulty in taking decision and may also harbor doubts about their own identity.

Word Connection
How people connect the letters in a word speaks volumes about their reasoning and intellectual faculties:

When letters within words are joined up in a steady way, it can denote logical and orderly thinking, use of experience more than imagination, consistency in work and clarity in thought process as well as conversation.
When letters within words are disconnected, it can demonstrate strong intuition, original thinking, impulsiveness, and creativity.

Baseline
A person’s character and his moods would have a substantial influence on the manner in which a line of writing makes its way across the page.

A steady baseline can mean a person is cool and calm, firm, confident and in control.
A wavy baseline can mean a person is impetuous, instinctive, spontaneous, temperamental, and unpredictable.
A downwardly directed baseline can indicate lack of energy, pessimism, skepticism, and tiredness.
An upwardly directed baseline can mean the person is buoyant, cheerful, forceful, and hopeful.

Signature
For most of us, a signature is nothing save “a couple of squiggles and a flourish” but for the experts, those squiggles can spell out the personality of the person. The way a person writes his first name is an indicator of his personal life and how he writes his surname talks about his/her social life, his business transactions and other social obligations. A signature in which every letter is legible, the capital letters are about two to three times higher than the small ones, and the t-bars and upper strokes head upwards, usually indicate a person who is straightforward, optimistic, comfortable at social gatherings, self confident, friendly and trustworthy.

When the first name is not too legible, it either means the person is trying to obscure it or that he or she is unable to see themselves as separate from the family.
When the last name cannot be easily read, the writer may be obscuring his or her approach to business or formal activities. The person may also feel the need to assert himself or herself as separate and more important than his/her family.
When the first or last names are obscured, it can also mean that the writer doesn’t like them.
When the capital letter of either name is low or small, it can imply lack of self-confidence.
When the capital letter of either name is very tall – say four times higher than the rest – it can denote a domineering or egoistic nature.

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