🖋️Calligraphy Guide Sheet

About this tool

Choose a hand (italic, foundational, gothic, uncial or copperplate) or enter your own proportions, set your nib width and slant, and print an A4 sheet of guidelines with a nib-width ladder.

Guidelines measured in nib widths

Broad-edged calligraphy is proportioned in nib widths, the width of the pen's edge, so the same hand looks right at any size as long as the guidelines match the nib. Calligraphers measure this with a ladder of small squares made by the nib turned flat, which this sheet prints for you on the first row. Typical proportions: italic about 5 nib widths of x-height with 4 for ascenders and descenders and a slight 5° forward slant; foundational (Edward Johnston's round hand) about 4 nib widths; gothic or blackletter about 5 with short ascenders; uncial about 4 with very short extenders. Each row shows an ascender line, a dashed waistline at the x-height, a bold baseline and a descender line, with light slant lines to keep letters consistent. For pointed-pen copperplate, the preset uses the classic 55° slant (35° from vertical) and tall loops. With a 3.8 mm nib and 5-4-4 italic proportions, each row is about 49 mm tall. Honest limits: print at 100% or 'actual size' on A4 for true millimetres, since fit-to-page or Letter paper scales slightly. Teachers recommend slightly different proportions. The handwriting worksheet generator and the graph paper generator are related.

Frequently asked questions