Learn cursive

Five hands, one copybook

Cursive is not one alphabet. Different schools and periods teach different shapes, and picking one helps you stay consistent. The five here run from the most formal to the plainest.

• Spencerian · model: Pinyon Script

  The classic American business hand of the 1800s: a steady forward slant, light upstrokes and gentle shading. Formal, slanted, light and airy.

• Copperplate · model: Great Vibes

  Round, even letters with sharp contrast between thin upstrokes and thick downstrokes, as in English roundhand. Flowing, high contrast, looped capitals.

• Palmer · model: Playwrite US Trad

  A plain, quick business cursive taught across American schools for decades, with simple capitals and few flourishes. Plain, rhythmic, compact.

• D'Nealian · model: Playwrite US Modern

  A slanted style designed so that print letters turn into cursive with the same shapes, only joined. Simple, slanted, print-like.

• Zaner-Bloser · model: Cedarville Cursive

  An upright, rounded school cursive with clear capitals that are easy to tell apart. Upright, rounded, legible.

How the score works

The pale letter is drawn on the same 500 by 600 box as the maker, scaled so that its x-height lands exactly between the x-height and baseline guide lines. That keeps every style at a comparable size, and it means a letter you trace here already sits correctly if you turn it into a font.

Behind the scenes both the letter and your strokes are painted onto a 250 by 300 grid. Coverage counts how many letter pixels fall under your ink, widened by about six pixels to forgive a shaky pen. Stay-on-the-letter counts how much of your ink lies within the letter widened by about seven pixels. A trace is marked done when both reach 60%, and the letter chip turns green.

Practising a whole set

Each style has three tabs: lowercase (26 letters), uppercase (26) and digits and marks (23). Practice this set shows how many letters are left and jumps you to the next one you have not finished. Most people find that lowercase takes two or three short sessions; capitals are slower because their shapes differ the most between styles.

1. Trace slowly the first time. Speed comes from rhythm, not from rushing the shape.
2. Watch the stay-on-the-letter number. If it is low, your pen is drifting off the model.
3. Use Undo rather than Clear when only the last stroke went wrong.
4. Move on once a letter is marked done and return later for a second pass.

Choosing which hand to learn

If you are practising for everyday writing, start with a plain hand such as Palmer or Zaner-Bloser, whose letters are quick to form and easy to read. If you are after decorative lettering for invitations or certificates, the Spencerian and Copperplate models teach the slant and the contrast that make formal scripts look elegant, but they take longer to master.

From tracing to a font

Create font gathers every letter you have traced in the current style, writes them into a new project named after the style, such as “Spencerian practice”, marks the project as made by tracing, and opens it in the maker. The glyphs are your strokes, not the model font's outlines, so the project behaves exactly like one you drew freehand: nudge, adjust, preview, export.

A font made only from traced letters looks like the model with your pen's wobble on top. If you want something that is clearly yours, trace to learn the structure and then draw the final alphabet in the maker.

Honest notes on the models

• The models are bundled fonts, not scans of printed copybooks. Joins between letters are not shown, because every letter is traced separately.
• Only the letters of each model font are available: the 75 characters of the three sets.
• Where a model's flourishes extend past the box, the pale letter can be clipped at the edge, which makes the coverage score a little harsh for those capitals.
• Your tracings live in this page while it is open. Use Create font to keep them as a project.

Copybook questions