Cursive G, uppercase and lowercase
Stroke stepsG in wordsPrintable practice sheet
Read the lines this way: the red one is the baseline, the dashed one is the midline (the top of short letters), and the blue one at the top is the height of capitals. These letters come from the outlines of a single school-cursive typeface, which is why every measurement below is exact.
Only the lowercase g has stroke steps on this page. The manuals we checked explain how small g is built, but for capital G they give only practice counts and a general instruction to study the form, so the capital is a picture without steps.
Lowercase cursive g
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1Begin one space above the baseline, on the dashed midline, with no lead-in stroke from the baseline. The first part is the same as the first part of small a, and as tall as a, o, m and n. [1][2]
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2Pull the downward stroke toward the center of your body, not toward your left elbow, and let the loop go below the baseline. Palmer's loop is three spaces deep, one space being the height of small o; this typeface draws it about one space deep. Long loops spoil a page by running into the lines above and below. [3][4][5]
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3Bring the loop back up and cross it with a left curve on the baseline. [4]
What the handwriting manuals say. The steps above use only these points; the letter drawn is the modern typeface, so small details of the old models differ.
“Small a is, in the main, a reduced copy of capital A, and the first parts of small d, g, and q are identical with it.”
“the first g begins one space above the base line, there being no initial line starting from the base; also that the first parts of small g and d are of the same height as a, o, m, and n”
“Reckoning small o, one-sixteenth of an inch high, as one space, small g should extend three spaces, or three-sixteenths of an inch below the base line”
“Study the form closely and note the crossing of the loop with a left curve on the base. Pull the loops toward the center of the body and not toward the left elbow.”
“Writing which is good in other respects is often spoiled in the written page because the loops are too long, extending into the lines above and below.”
G in joined words
In joined writing the loop of lowercase g hangs 519 units below the baseline, so it sits in the gap under the word, while capital G is as tall as the other capitals. Below, every word is typeset in that typeface and joined by the font's own rules.
- Gary
- gift
- green
- Grace
- big
- dog
How tall each letter sits on the lines
| Letter | Top of the letter | Bottom | Width |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lowercase g | 104% of the midline height (519 vs 500 units): the oval just clears the dashed line | 519 units below the baseline, at the bottom of the loop | 610 units |
| Uppercase G | 101% of capital height (1015 vs 1000 units): the top loop passes the top line | on the baseline (-12 units) | 1193 units, the widest of the two |
Units are the typeface's own grid, 1,000 to the em. Read from the font file of Playwrite US Trad; see how these are made.
Practice sheet
One page, fits US Letter and A4. Two rows for each letter: the first starts with one dark model to copy, then gray letters to trace, and the second is all tracing. Then two word rows and two empty rows for writing alone.