Handwriting Spacing

March 9, 2015

The 4-line guides on the link that I posted above come in varying heights, but they all have a space between the ascender line and the descender line above. I see no need for the wasted space, so I'm going to try printing my own guides where the descender guide overlies the ascender line below. There still shouldn't be any clashing. If it works out, I'll post a sample.

March 9, 2015

Is this what you're talking about?

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/paperbank/_files/handwritinglineslarge.pdf

Yes, but in my case, the spacing is even. That guide sheet has a taller x-height than x-height to ascender. But that is the idea.

Then the next step is to compress the writing lines, so that the descender of text line 1 is the ascender of text line 2.

I'll try to shoot a sample.

March 9, 2015

Here is my 4-line guide sheet with writing on it, to show how the lines are used.

The dashed line is the x-height line.

Above it is the ascender line.

Below it is the base line.

And below the base line is the descender line.

Edited March 10, 2015 by ac12

March 10, 2015

Here is my 4-line guide sheet with writing on it, to show how the lines are used.
The dashed line is the x-height line.
Above it is the ascender line.
Below it is the base line.
And below the base line is the descender line.

That's what I'm talkin' about! I did a preliminary last night, but I need to decrease the line spacing.

March 10, 2015

Dave

You have to play around with the line spacing to see what works for YOU.

Some times the 8mm (base to ascender) feels a bit cramped, because you can see how my descenders go DOWN. I have done 9 and 10mm, but 8mm seems the best compromise, to not loose too much space on a letter.
And that is funny, cuz I used to be a finger writer who could easily use narrow ruled paper, and here I was looking at writing larger than wide ruled paper.

BTW, I use the template with the dashed lines for the x-height because, it is easy to identify the x-height line as my reference line, when viewing the guide sheet under my working paper.

March 10, 2015

Interesting topic. I started out college as a Graphic Design major, so I had classes in stuff like typography and layout/pasteup.

The term that people keep dancing around is "leading" -- it's the amount of space between baselines and it is often useful for keeping descenders and ascenders from crashing into each other. (FWIW, the space between letters is "kerning".)

One of the things that drives me completely bonkers about typing on a computer screen is that it seems completely impossible to adjust the leading between lines: it's set at 2 points (e.g. if you're typing something in a font that's sized at 12 points, the leading between lines is 14 points) -- and that's that. But there *might* be times where I want to tighten up the leading so as to, say, not have a single word hanging on the top of the page and if I tighten up the leading to say 1 point between lines, that single word would easily fit on the preceding page.

Maybe some of the fancier programs out there do stuff like that. But I can't afford them. So I'm stuck with apps designed by computer people (who don't understand or have never learned about those sort of nuances) and not by graphic artists or typographers. Which is completely frustrating -- I mean, isn't that the whole POINT of having Macs over PCs?

I suppose I could save up for some program that isn't designed for non-graphic artists (i.e., something not as buggy and moronic as iPages) -- but of course that would cut into my pen and inks budget. And we can't have THAT....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

March 10, 2015

The term that people keep dancing around is "leading" -- it's the amount of space between baselines and it is often useful for keeping descenders and ascenders from crashing into each other. (FWIW, the space between letters is "kerning".)....out there do stuff like that. But I can't afford them. So I'm stuck with apps designed by computer people (who don't understand or have never learned about those sort of nuances) and not by graphic artists or typographers. Which is completely frustrating -- I mean, isn't that the whole POINT of having Macs over PCs?

LibreOffice is full featured office software. Its Writer program has just about everything that's in Microsoft Office, including line leading settings, font spacing, widow and orphan controls.