Ask HN: Most Efficient Handwriting Font? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Most Efficient Handwriting Font?

4 pointsCuriositry4 comments

I am dissatisfied with the speed, legibility, and aesthetics of my handwriting. I have tried many variations of cursive and italic. (I have always found lowercase b, v, k, and r awkward in typical Zaner-Bloser / D'Nealian type cursive scripts.)

Does anyone know of any rigorous (or amateur) research into optimizing handwriting speed, legibility, and comfort?

Thanks!

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For efficiency, a form of short-hand may be faster. But, if what you write needs to be legible to others, a printed form can be beneficial for this. Cursive is not always as legible to others. James Pickering used to have some pages describing his use of italics based on the teachings of Bennardino Cataneo. I like it and used it some when I was more active in writing with fountain pens (a whole 'nother topic). Since most of my writing is with a keyboard, I never practiced enough to write quickly. His site is no longer active, but it can be found in the archive. Here is one page describing this italics. https://web.archive.org/web/20190728053426/http://jp29.org/i...

Thank you! I’m enjoying going through the archives.

I don't have anything concrete for you, but I'm quite happy with my quality and speed. As a kid I wrote only in cursive, but it has too much backtracking.

Now I write in more of a standard font but I don't pick up the pen very often. That's where the speed comes from.

For legibility, I've focused on each letter intently throughout my entire life, to the point where I basically have a font reference in my head.

Each letter and number has a standard. I spent a long time trying to make each one perfect, but now it's second nature.

As long as my writing platform is good, and I have a 1.0mm G2 pen, I'm good to go.

I really like Comenia Script: https://www.comenia-script.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Ab...

It's designed for Czech, but that shouldn't matter. I personally write with a modified (more cursive) version of it.

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