What handwriting says about a person: features, examples, decoding and recommendations

On what basis do we form our opinion about a person, his character and abilities? Of course, for many reasons, among which the most significant are usually behavior, speech and appearance. However, appearances, as we know, can be deceiving, speech can be a product of learning, and it takes time to recognize people by their actions.

This is probably why there is great interest in methods for faster and more accurate analysis of a person’s inner world, not only among psychologists, personnel selection specialists, etc., but also among a wide range of readers.

There are, of course, a large number of specially created tests that allow you to identify certain personality traits. But their use (we are not talking about popular, but about professional tests) and correct analysis of the results require professional psychological knowledge and skills, so it is better to leave the possibility of their use to working psychologists. We will consider another method of obtaining information about the inner world of a person - analysis of the products of his activity. You can examine the results of creative activity (drawings, poems, stories, etc.), but not everyone has them, and besides, their analysis cannot be carried out according to a clear, unambiguous scheme. Therefore, in this article we propose to focus on adult handwriting - a product that is easy to “obtain” for analysis or even take your own sample.

Graphology, or the science of handwriting, reveals the individual characteristics of a person, which are reflected in the specific writing of letters and lines. Over the years, a certain algorithm has been developed for conducting a comprehensive analysis of handwriting. It should be noted right away that the ideal piece of text for analysis is written on an unlined sheet of paper and contains a signature.

So, before moving on to a detailed consideration, it is necessary to evaluate handwriting in three basic areas:

harmony is the degree of harmony between the individual letters that make up words. Pay attention to the overall impression of the handwriting: does it create a sense of unity? If you are inclined to favor a positive answer, then the owner of the handwriting probably has good taste and internal culture.
Geometric consistency of writing - evenness of lines and margins, equal distances between words and lines, uniform pressure. A high degree of this symptom indicates that a person has a large supply of internal energy, developed volitional efforts, allowing him to always maintain internal balance, inhibit unwanted emotions, and act deliberately.
Graphological - the degree of deviation from calligraphic handwriting (which we were all taught at school). The greater this difference, the more the owner of the handwriting is inclined to show his originality and individuality in life.

Now we can move on to considering individual handwriting indicators. In general, there are a great many such indicators (including the writing of individual numbers and letters), so we will focus only on the main ones. It is important to keep in mind that you cannot draw conclusions about personality traits based on just one trait. It is necessary to take into account the entire range of characteristics being studied and the degree of their severity (just as a doctor never makes a diagnosis based on only one symptom).

Graphology

Not as young as it seems at first glance, the science of graphology will tell you what handwriting says about a person’s character. She is engaged in a detailed study of the inclination of letters, the distance between them, as well as their location on paper. The analysis reveals not only personal qualities, but also future prospects or inclinations.

In fact, the connection between handwriting and a person’s character was noticed back in the Middle Ages. The basis of graphology is considered to be a book written by the Roman historian Suetonius back in the 16th century. And after a couple of centuries, data on handwriting was systematized by Michon. The final proof of this connection was the experiments conducted by V. Preyer using hypnosis - he inspired the same person that he had different character traits, and the subject’s handwriting changed radically.

Text Scanner text recognizer

Another simple application with which your smartphone will become both a scanner and a translator. The application supports more than 100 world languages, recognizes characters and texts with high quality, which is why it is so popular.

What we get with OCR Text Scanner:

extracting text with pictures;
cropping and adjusting images for better recognition of what is written;
text editing;
the ability to share text with other users;
saving scan history;
extracting phone numbers, email addresses, URL links from images.

Based on this, in order to convert handwritten text, just like in the previous case, you need to photograph it with a mobile phone camera on Android or iOS.

The result is issued in the same location as the original, which reduces the time for text processing.

The application is suitable for both book format and small inscriptions.

General organization of handwriting

When analyzing, the first thing to check is the evenness of the handwriting. This determines from which side (positive/negative) this or that personality trait will be viewed:

Smooth and perfectly organized handwriting shows an active and focused person who is always confident in his own abilities and does not have a tendency to frequent failures.
Large, but not entirely organized handwriting indicates impulsiveness.
Small and organized indicates that its owner uses his own strength wisely.
Indecisive and timid people show small and very poorly organized handwriting - this is an insecure person who retreats at the first difficulties.

How to find out your occupation by handwriting

The way doctors write is legendary. But not only representatives of this profession can be identified by their handwriting. There are a number of other examples:

Uneven, sloppy - pharmacists, businessmen.
Jerky, running - linguists.
With strokes - those who are engaged in mental activity, professors.
Descending - poets, dreamers, philosophers.
Vertical - mathematicians, engineers.
Wavy handwriting is most often found among artists, sculptors and other creative people.

Size

Large or small handwriting will tell about a person’s relationship with the people around him. Many people want to know what the small size of letters says about a person, because statistics show that the number of individuals with small handwriting slightly exceeds the number of people accustomed to large letters.

To begin with, you should mark the boundaries - letters that reach 3 millimeters in height are considered average. Accordingly, small ones are up to 3 mm, and large ones are from 3 mm.

Owners of large handwriting are always sociable and active, they can support any conversation and cheer up the most boring company.
Too small letters indicate modesty and reluctance to attract attention. Although it should be noted that people who write in small handwriting love to think, it is difficult to expect bold actions from them.
And medium-sized letters go to people who always know how to find compromises. They realistically assess their strengths and can adapt to any situation.

How to determine appearance by handwriting

As you can see, recognizing character from handwriting is not so difficult. It is enough to study the shape and appearance of the letters, the direction of the lines and other parameters. What can you say about your appearance? You can tell about height, fullness, and even hair color by looking at your handwriting:

Short stature. The letters seem to want to grow. They are elongated and sweeping. Those at the end of a word are often not completed completely.
High growth. Letters with strokes, but not elongated. The lines are like a fence. In general, the handwriting is unsteady. The pressure is uneven.
Average height. The letters located at the beginning of the line are compressed, and at the end they are scattered. The last characters are often dropped down.
Slenderness. Periods, commas and other punctuation marks are small. And the letters, on the contrary, are elongated.
Completeness. Pressure may vary from letter to letter. Some characters are not fully spelled out.

As for blondes and brunettes, the former write legibly, in narrow, medium-sized letters. People with dark hair raise the words above the line. Capital letters are often decorated, with a beautiful shape. The lines go up in most cases.

Lines and strings

No less important are the lines and lines that characterize a person’s reaction to various external stimuli (surrounding events). The person’s subconscious plays a role here, since the line for writing a word is chosen not at the physical level, but precisely at the subconscious:

Smooth lines are observed by a reliable person who will always fulfill a friend’s request and will not let you down in difficult situations.
Pretentiously straight lines indicate too many knowledge control questions.
Uneven lines are observed in those who lack strong internal stability.
An upward directed line indicates optimism, and a downward directed line indicates a pessimistic owner.

Google Lens recognizes handwritten text

So you've taken notes, and now you want to digitize them. To this end, Google has introduced an updated Google Lens application, which helps transfer handwritten text to the editor through the gadget.

The application is available in several languages, but Russian is not yet supported. Therefore, to work with the service, specify English as the system language in the settings. To do this, go to the “Settings” of your smartphone, select the “Language and Keyboard” section.

On iOS devices, open “Settings”, “General”, “Language and Region”, “iPhone Language” and check English.
You now have a working Google Lens app enabled on your gadget and available in the Google Photos menu.
All that remains is to select the text section.
Point your mobile phone camera at them and highlight part of the text on the screen. Select the "Copy to Computer" option.

Transferring text from one mobile device to another is only possible using the latest version of the Chrome browser. The same account must be opened on the smartphone and PC. The application also has other updates, for example, translation and voice-over of foreign texts (only on Android devices), search for words and phrases.

Intervals

Certain distances between lines and words give characteristics about the behavior and thinking of an individual.

People who are constantly confused prefer to have small spacing between lines. Handwriting that speaks of a person who is attentive and makes informed decisions is the large spaces between the lines.

The volume of mental and physical space is shown by the intervals between words:

A person who is able to adequately perceive the external picture and respect social inequality has the same spaces between words.
Distances of different sizes indicate a fickle personality who communicates only with people he likes, and simply ignores the rest.
Narrow spaces characterize a closed person who allows others to get close to him. Such a person does not require too much personal space, but prefers to be more close to other people.
Large spaces between words reveal the owner's fear of contact with others. It will be very difficult to make acquaintance with such a person, but when approaching him, he will seem to be a rather interesting interlocutor.

Orientation in space

If the written lines have a clear horizontal orientation, then the person knows how to concentrate on the main thing. He has a balanced character, it is difficult to unsettle him, and he himself will not create a problem out of a trifle.

If the end of the line tends upward (flies up), this indicates optimism, cheerfulness, a cheerful and mischievous nature.

Lines that constantly slide down are a sign of a pessimist. Such a person criticizes, looks at life coldly and cynically. He has a heavy sense of humor and a habit of complaining about life.

If the lines dance up and down, then the person is fickle. It is difficult for him to adapt to new living conditions, his mood is constantly changing.

Pressure

Particular attention is paid to what handwriting says about a person, if the pressure of a pen or pencil can be completely different for the same person. You should know that pressure is a characteristic of a real emotional state:

Strong pressure of the writing object on the paper guarantees emotional constancy and stability in all sensations.
Light pressure shows the owner as a person who is easily influenced by others. Typically, such people choose an intellectual sphere of activity for themselves, they are susceptible to other personalities, and there are no deep feelings at all.

Handwriting tells you about a person’s level of responsibility

The topic is serious, pressing, and analysis of a person’s handwriting can be a significant clue for you in the question of how much you can trust him with important matters.

Did you know that there are two types of responsibility? And, of course, by looking at a person’s handwriting, you can understand what kind of responsibility he has.

Responsibility-reinsurance. Responsibility is not mature, not of one's own free will. Those. a person shows it knowing that they are looking at him. Otherwise, it will be as it happened.
Adult responsibility. The responsibility of a mature person does not depend on whether people are looking at you or not.

Let's look at two handwritings as an example.

The first handwriting is male, right-handed, 40 years old.

The handwriting looks much younger than the author's age.

The letters are standard, as prescribed. No own inventions. No simplifications, everything is very standard.

Note the emphasis on the middle zone of the letters. Less attention is paid to the upper and lower zones (By the way, let me remind you that we also look at IQ based on them!), everything is focused on oneself.

Round, plump, slightly awkward, banal letters.

The movement is slow.

Is there a feeling of flow, wave, dynamics? No! (+straight tilt, strong pressure).

There is no movement, everything is frozen. Lots of tension.

The strokes are bold, even a little intrusive. There are no thin ligaments at all.

High degree of homogeneity. There is no liveliness, lightness, fluency.

Can you already guess what type of responsibility this handwriting indicates? Yes, “responsibility when someone is watching. Reinsurance.”

And then consider the second handwriting sample:

Girl, 31 years old, right-handed

Tension alternates with relaxation.

Subtle strokes and light connections appear. The text is no longer so bold and intrusive.

The flow of thought is visible (the tilt is already to the right). An undeniable feeling of movement.

This movement takes away the readability a little, because of this the letters are not written out as well. They no longer remind us of copybooks.

The handwriting seems mature and individual.

The level of Personality Development is significantly higher than in the previous version.

Of course, the girl is a truly responsible person.

Slant letters

The characteristics of handwriting tell about the level of emotional reactions, as well as the degree of understanding of others.

People with perfect calligraphic handwriting are quite difficult to find, so the most common query is “What does a person’s bad handwriting indicate?” In fact, before considering your own handwriting to be bad, you should understand this characteristic and the very arrangement of the letters:

The strict verticality of the letters hides a calm and calm person, who is often indifferent to others at a time when others experience completely different feelings.
If the letters are slightly tilted to the right, then this is direct evidence of a soft reaction to the environment. Such a person cannot be called restrained, since before showing emotions, he first thinks everything over carefully.
An increased tilt to the right shows emotional tension and impulsiveness.
Cold people tilt their letters to the left when writing. They protect themselves from irritants as much as possible and often act selfishly towards others.

Interpreting handwriting correctly: life hacks from graphologists

Photo: TASS/YAY

In order for the graphological analysis to be complete, experts recommend adhering to the following conditions when writing text:

The manuscript must be written on a blank, unlined sheet of A4 format;
Be sure to write with a blue ballpoint pen on a flat surface; you need to place at least three more sheets of paper under the paper - this will make it possible to take into account such a characteristic as pressure;
The text should be free: when rewriting ready-made phrases or quoting, a person will have more control over himself. For graphological analysis, freedom of writing is important, more clearly reflecting internal and unconscious processes;
A couple of phrases are not enough for a full analysis. Ideally, at least two or three A4 sheets should be written on;
It is advisable for the specialist to have handwriting samples from different periods of time. This will allow us to take into account the dynamics of personality development and separate permanent factors (mood, poor health) from unchanged personal characteristics.

Autograph of a person with a mental disorder.

Photo: illustration from Dmitry Zuev-Insarov’s book “Handwriting and Personality”

After a correctly completed sample has been received, you can proceed directly to interpreting what was written. Conventionally, we can identify several basic characteristics of handwriting that need to be taken into account when analyzing it:

Shape/height/width: can tell about a person’s relationship with the internal and external worlds;
Pressure: shows the degree of energy of a person;
Movement, writing fluency: speaks about the speed of mental processes;
Continuity: indicates a sequence of actions;
Slope: speaks of the movement of emotions;
Homogeneity: constancy/inconsistency of personal qualities;
Line formations: will help in drawing up a psychological portrait;
Use of space on paper: gravitation towards the past/future, conscious/unconscious;
Line shapes: can say a lot about a person's temperament.

As examples, graphologist Sergei Sergeev cited rounded handwriting (arc elements of forms - openness, cheerfulness, emotions, feelings), large handwriting (extroversion, thoroughness, self-confidence), small handwriting (introversion, fatigue), fast writing speed, which speaks of a person’s flexibility, and slow speed, which may indicate a stubborn nature.

Handwriting of Alexander Pushkin.

Photo: illustration from Dmitry Zuev-Insarov’s book “Handwriting and Personality”

An interesting example would be the natural calligraphic handwriting of an adult who writes this way all the time (important: moments when people deliberately try to write beautifully, for example, when making cards or filling out documents, do not count). According to graphologists, a regular desire for stylization may indicate excessive concentration on form rather than content. As Sergeev noted, if a person writes in a stylized manner all the time, he can be secretive and constantly keep himself within limits, trying to demonstrate to those around him that everything in his life is perfect.

How employees are selected

In some European countries, personnel are selected according to clear rules, one of which is a graphological examination - this will be the last step in the test. The final decision to accept an employee for a position is made only after the boss knows exactly what the person’s handwriting says (there are examples below).

Only worthy people are hired for financial positions in the United States. They have to take quite difficult tests, where handwriting plays an important role. A graphologist can make a verdict that a person is prone to deception, and then he will be refused.

Passing the examination is not always easy. For example, people whose hallmark is clumsy handwriting, which indicates a person prone to quarrels and fickleness, are unlikely to obtain a prestigious position in many countries.

The relationship between handwriting and human character

Sometimes we become very interested and want to analyze our own handwriting and sometimes we learn something new about ourselves. And let’s say we didn’t really like it. Is it possible to change your character by changing your handwriting?

It turns out yes! Handwriting is one of the elements that influences a person’s character, the ability to control and manage one’s character.

For example, a person learns to make decisions. And I learned that pressure is associated with determination. Will his character change if he starts writing with strong pressure? In general, of course not.

But, if you pay attention to the pressure of your handwriting, then after the change in handwriting you will notice slightly different behavior at the moment of making a decision. Those. Individual character traits that you begin to control change.

Short test

You can optionally take a short test to find out what a person’s handwriting says (the transcript will be below):

Write down a sentence of 4-5 words at a fast and then a slow pace.
Draw any animal.
Draw a geometric figure.
Point the arrow in any direction.

A person whose handwriting does not differ from his usual one in the first exercise reacts quickly to a change in situation. The emotions of the drawn animal are the protection of the author’s emotions. The presence of angles in a geometric figure indicates failure, and roundness indicates developed willpower. A straight arrow shows the presence of the right goals, while a winding arrow indicates that a person likes to talk more than do anything.

Human signature analysis

Every person is sure to put his signature somewhere from time to time. I advise you to pay attention to it. A person's signature can tell us a lot.

An ordinary simple signature often speaks of a person's self-confidence.
The presence of squiggles and loops indicates observation, resourcefulness and cunning.
The presence of a frame indicates timidity and susceptibility to phobias.
The presence of various elements indicates originality.
Curls and strokes indicate resourcefulness, ingenuity, and the presence of a vivid imagination.
A crossed out signature indicates impulsiveness and explosive character traits.
Underlining the signature indicates entrepreneurship. Moreover, if the line goes to the beginning, then there is a selfish person who does not know how to trust anyone.
The signature, which is in the center of the circle, indicates a shy character.
The coincidence of the first letter with the surname of the owner of the signature indicates a healthy assessment of one’s own capabilities and modesty of character.
If the first part of the signature stands out strongly, this is an indicator of ambition and narcissism, an inability to concentrate.
Waves and zigzags are for a cheerful disposition.
A signature that moves upward indicates optimism.
Horizontal - for prudence and confidence.
Going down - to be closed.
The dot ending the signature indicates discipline.

PDF24 Tools - online browser-based handwriting recognizer for doctors

This method does not require you to install applications on your device. To implement it, you only need a browser on your smartphone, tablet or computer. The service is distinguished by high quality photo processing with text, has many additional functions, and is also completely free.

How to use the service:

You must have a photo of the doctor's prescription on your device. Go to the service page in your browser using this link https://tools.pdf24.org/ru/ocr-pdf.
Click the Select Files button and select the recipe photo file on your device.
Wait for the photo to load and then you will see additional options. Here you need to select the recognition language, and also enable the “Handwritten pages” option. The remaining options are optional - you can change them at your discretion. When everything is ready, click the “Start OCR“ button. Text recognition will begin.
Wait for recognition to complete. And then you will see the option to download the processed text. The text will be downloaded in .pdf format if the settings above were left at default.

The meaning of margins and indents

Forensic scientists use handwriting examination to identify a criminal, and psychologists use it to analyze personality. Kurt and Anna Bartol write about this in the book “Modern Perspectives on Forensic Psychology and Criminal Behavior.”

Indents from the edges of the sheet are important in determining a person’s character:

If there are wide margins on the left, then the person is characterized by a breadth of soul. The person is active and does not like monotony.
Narrow margins on the left are a sign of pedantry, frugality, and nepotism. Such people make good spouses.
If the fields expand downward, then the person is thrifty and likes to save. However, this does not mean that he does not like to share. Such a person generously gifts loved ones.
The widest indentation on the left is extravagance, boastfulness, desire for luxury, pride and familiarity.
The left edge tapers downwards - self-control, secrecy, stinginess and selfishness.
If a person leaves wide margins on the right, does not break words, but starts on a new line, then he is very cautious, secretive and even cowardly.
A large distance between words means a desire to stay at a safe distance from people.

Maximalists leave no margins at all; they love to express themselves, attracting people's attention. Such people strive to live according to the laws of conscience and honor and achieve success.