This document discusses handwriting examination principles and techniques used by forensic document examiners. It outlines how examiners analyze various characteristics of handwriting, including size, slant, line quality, spacing, pen pressure, and tremor, to determine writing authenticity and identify writers. Examiners rely on the principles that no two writers have identical styles, writing varies within individuals, and writers cannot exceed their skill level, to examine documents and uncover alterations or forgeries.

1. Handwriting Examination

2. • Forensic document examiners often deal with
questions of document authenticity.
• To determine whether a document is genuine,
an examiner may attempt to confirm who
created the document, determine the
timeframe in which it was created, identify
the materials used in its preparation or
uncover modifications to the original text.
• Documents can be examined for evidence of
alterations, obliterations, erasures ,page
substitutions, handwriting, signature etc.

3. Principles of handwriting examination
• Forensic examination and comparison of
handwriting, which includes hand printing and
signatures, is based on three main principles:
(1) Given a sufficient amount of handwriting, no
two skilled writers exhibit identical handwriting
features;
(2) every person has a range of natural variation to
his or her writing;
(3) no writer can exceed his or her skill level (i.e., it
would not be possible for a marginally literate
person who has only learned to produce very
basic hand-printed letters to execute perfectly
formed, highly skilled cursive writing).

4. • Handwriting is a neuromuscular activity or
style of writing of an individual using any
instrument for being of communication of
information and ideas to others for better
understanding.
• Handwriting examination is an important
aspect of forensic document examination due
to the prevalent and integral role played by
handwriting in everyday communication.

5. • Everyone’s handwriting exhibits natural
variations depending on several factors. The
use of different types of writing instruments,
(a pen, pencil, marker, or crayon), writing
position and surface can affect our
handwriting.
• Our mood, our age, and how hurried we are
all contribute to the differences we notice in
our own handwriting. Despite these minor
variations in handwriting, each person has a
unique handwriting style. The handwriting of
every individual is unique. No two person can
write exactly alike.

6. • Handwriting of a person has a personality of
its own which is different from that of any
other individuals, even from his or her father,
mother, brother or sister.
• The output, to start with, is the sum total of
schooling, training, with experience
environment and occupation in addition to
mental, physical and emotional make up or
same experience in life.

7. • Natural variation in handwriting are
subjective. The vary in nature and number
with different individuals but the range of
variation for a individual is more or less
constant, with a range, with the same
individual.
• Natural variations are due to the fact that our
brain does not work like a computer. It gets
distracted easily both by the external and
internal distractions. Likewise, our fingers,
hands and arms are not printing machines to
recreate the same writing time and again.

8. • The handwriting of a person shows some
variation due to:
1.Fatigue
2. Illness
3. Age
4. Writing materials
5. Writing positions
6. Physical disturbance
7. Writing with the dormant hand
8. Emotional disturbance
9. Lack of concentration during writing process
10. Influence of drinks, drugs or both.

9. Handwriting characteristics
• Every person whose handwriting is developed
and permanently formed had adopted certain
more or less distinctive peculiarities in the
formation of letters of which the person is
generally unaware.
• The handwriting characteristics of a person is
classified as
 Class characteristics
Individual characteristics

10. • Size of the letters: It’s very self-explanatory;
this simply analyses the proportion of the
handwriting. The relative size of letter and
words became almost fixed with the passage
of time with the writer.
• Slant of writing: The inclination of letters or
their strokes with the actual or imaginary
baseline is known as writing slant. Slant is a
predominant angle of the downwardstroke. It
looks at which way the letter tends to slant.
The types of slants include right slant, left
slant, and vertical slant. The most average
slant is to the right.

12. • Line quality: It is the thickness, strength, and
flow of the letters. Some factors are if the
letters are flowing, shaky, or very thick. A line
written by an experienced writer are smooth,
even, without tremors and written with
speed. The starting finishing and
embellishment strokes are natural and
smooth. Connecting strokes are uniform and
continuous except where the writer habitually
lifts the pen to complete or modify the letter.
The line quality can be poor if the writer is
week and feeble or illiterate or semi-literate

14. • Spacing: The amount of space put between
letters, words, line or paragraph is called
spacing.

15. • Pen Pressure: It is the weight or pressure
unconsciously applied to the writing instrument
during the act of writing. Writing produced with a nib
pen will clearly show the effect of applying different
amount of pressure to the writing instrument as it
passes along the paper. Writers can be categorized to
have light, medium, or heavy pen pressure.

16. • Tremor: This may be defined as the unusual
departure of the line from its intended course,
which may be natural or artificial. It is
indicated by an involuntary and rhythmic
movement of the pen from side to side
resulting in irregular and shaky handwriting
Natural tremors are developed due to old age
or weakness of muscles. Artificial tremors are
a proof of forgery and do not show uniformity
that is some of the strokes are too strong and
the others are too weak

19. Shape of handwriting