ABSTRACT
Hand-printing is the most basic form of written communication in society. Children first learn to read using a hand-printed alphabet of letter-forms, which is the basis of almost all modern-day printed materials. Children as young as three years old begin to learn to recognize the shapes of the alphabet, and as soon as kindergarten, they are learning to imitate these shapes to form words and sentences. With the development of these writing systems came the expectation of improving legibility or simplifying the writing process for the beginning writer. Differentiation of hand-printing is essentially the same as differentiating cursive. Several variations of the same letter are often found in one person’s writing. As is true with cursive writing, this range of variation can be one of the strongest features used for showing an association or disassociation between two hand-printing samples. The identification of hand-printing has long been considered an integral part of the handwriting analysis process.
