Analyzing Your Handwriting Can Reveal Your Personality Traits—Here Are 5 Things To Look For

If you want to learn more about your personality, you don't have to take a test or do a lot of soul-searching—just analyze your handwriting. Experts say that handwriting analysis can reveal tons of specific details about your personality. In fact, everyone's handwriting is full of different elements. Think of all the various letters, numbers and symbols that you write every day. Each stroke of your pen reveals something different.

“It’s all down to what [...] appears in the handwriting,” explains Sheila Lowe, gestalt graphology expert and author of Reading Between the Lines. “I’m evaluating the spatial arrangement, letter designs, and movement, which includes rhythm, speed, pressure, and many other characteristics. So an element of handwriting can mean something in one handwriting, but something a bit different in another.”

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What Is Handwriting Analysis?

Handwriting analysis, which involves studying someone's handwriting to discover their personality characteristics, is a powerful way to learn about the people in your life. You can get to know anyone better through a sample of their handwriting, or even take a look at your own writing to uncover truths about yourself.

Experts point out that handwriting tests offer valuable insights because they provide a direct, unaltered window into someone’s mind. “Handwriting is brain-writing,” says Bart Baggett, founder of Handwriting University International and author of The Success Secrets of the Rich & Happy. “Other personality tests can be ‘gamed’ or ‘influenced’ by answering the questions dishonestly. Since people usually have no idea their handwriting is being analyzed, [a handwriting] personality test is much more accurate and provides more insight than the Myers-Briggs or other personality tests.”

“A quick overview of handwriting will give the reader a multitude of information,” agrees Wendy Carlson, a Certified Questioned Document Examiner and Handwriting Expert. Carlson explains that basic elements of handwriting such as the angles, slants, curves and loops all reveal a wealth of details. You can uncover someone’s learning style, emotional openness, and other personality traits through handwriting.

A person’s handwriting contains many clues to their personality. “More than 100 personality traits can be determined from handwriting,” says Carlson. However, you can start your journey into handwriting analysis with some basic written elements. Here's where to start.

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How To Analyze Your Handwriting

1. Check the slant.

“The slant of the writing tells the emotional expressiveness of the writer,” says Carlson. “A more vertical slant reveals someone who keeps their emotions more in check and unseen by others, where a more right slanted writer shows a person who is very expressive and will be one to jump or yelp when someone slams a door.”

Writing that slants to the left is just as revealing as writing that leans to the right. “If the writing leans to the left, they are emotional but won’t allow others to see it,” says Lowe.

2. Size does matter.

The size of your handwriting has a lot to say about your mindset, personality and emotional state. The overall size of someone’s handwriting represents “how much space the writer feels s/he deserves to take up,” says Lowe.

Baggett agrees, explaining that girls with big handwriting “are the life of the party and being around people gives them energy. A girl with tiny and compressed writing is just the opposite. She finds being around too many people emotionally draining and many people confuse her focus for the trait of introversion.”

“Small writing indicates focus and concentration ability,” Carlson adds. If you know someone with small, clear handwriting, don’t be surprised if they avoid large crowds but love deep, one-on-one conversations.

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3. Study your signature line.

Signatures are even more personal than other forms of writing. When you sign your name, your signature reveals a world of personal information. “Extra large capital letters in one’s name” show a “large self of self-importance and the outward display of confidence and courage,” says Baggett.

You can compare someone’s signature to the rest of their handwriting for even more details. Check to see if the signature matches their normal writing style. “If it is close, what you see is what you get, no pretense. If the signature is illegible, the writer may be very private, or s/he may be hiding something,” says Baggett.

4. Try unlined paper.

We do most of our free-hand writing on lined paper, but handwriting on unlined paper offers additional insights. Lowe describes your baseline as the “imaginary line you write on,” and a baseline is full of information.

“The overall upward tilt of the baseline when writing on unlined paper indicates the overall attitude of optimism and joy,” says Baggett. “The opposite is true too. If the baseline slopes downward to the right, sadness or depression could be at play.”

Your baseline’s consistency is as important as its angle. “The straighter (within reason) the baseline is, the more the writer moves steadily towards a goal,” explains Lowe. “Some variation is good, as a too-straight baseline is a sign of rigidity. A very wavy baseline writer is easily distracted. Someone who writes on a ruler has tremendous anxiety.”

5. Study the T’s.

If you don’t have time for in-depth handwriting analysis, you can still learn a lot by examining just one letter. “The letter T is very telling as there are at least 13 different personality traits that can be gleaned from it,” says Carlson. Study the T’s in a handwriting sample to look for energy levels and motivation.

“High T-bars represent good self-esteem and high goals,” explains Carlson, and “elongated T-bars mean lots of enthusiasm.”

Lowe agrees that long cross-bars on the letter T indicate high enthusiasm and lots of energy, as well as strong leadership abilities. She also suggests keeping an eye out for T’s shaped like stars. “A letter T that looks like a star indicates the person is highly motivated to finish what he starts and will bounce back after any setback.”

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