HANDWRITING & GRAPHOLOGY
Handwriting pressure: pen force and stroke weight
Handwriting pressure is the force applied to the paper. Stroke weight is the visible thickness and darkness of the ink; compare them separately when reading a sample.
Compare the visible forms
A narrow ink boundary; it may come from a fine pen.
A broad ink boundary; inspect the actual paper before assigning force.
The direction changes while the width stays even. Compare matching downstrokes in the sample.
What to inspect
On the original sheet, look for indentations on the reverse and compare darker downstrokes with lighter returning strokes. Keep the pen, ink and paper the same when comparing samples: a broad nib can make a dark line with a light touch.
Separate the measurements
A photograph shows the ink boundary, contrast and line width. The handwriting analyzer measures visible stroke width in pixels, or millimetres when you supply a known image width. To inspect pen force itself, use the physical sheet or a recording device that measures pressure.
The traditional graphology reading
Traditional graphology links sustained firm pressure with intensity and light pressure with a lighter expression. First establish whether the difference is force, pen width or ink flow. Patchy ink from a drying pen is a different observation from a repeated change in touch.
Try a sample comparison
Write the same short sentence twice with the same pen. On the original paper, compare the indentation and the width of three matching downstrokes. Record the two observations in separate columns.