Handwriting for Windows 3.0 CDROM

'Handwriting for Windows 3.0': Single User £29.99 inc VAT on CDROM for W98, NT4, 2000, XP and VISTA with manual on disk

'Handwriting for Windows 3.0': Site Licence £69.99 inc VAT on CDROM for W98, NT4, 2000, XP and VISTA with manual on disk

(These fonts are for non-commercial use only. Please contact KBER if you want to use them in publications)

Curriculum Online ID: KBER-HfW

What is Handwriting for Windows?

Handwriting for Windows 3.0 (HfW3.0) is a unique combination of  handwriting software and cursive handwriting fonts. The idea behind Handwriting for Windows was originally conceived as an aid to producing the book ‘Enjoy Your Handwriting’ by Kath Balcombe. It was very obvious from the start that if teachers could get hold of such a product, it could well make books like the latter redundant! Using HfW3.0 really does allow you to produce handwriting practice worksheets and other exercises as easily as you would produce any other documents from your PC.

Producing neat, accurate originals in the style we would want children to copy is frustratingly difficult. Bad habits creep in and mistakes are made which are tedious to correct. The great advantage of using a wordprocessor is that mistakes are easily corrected and provided good ‘housekeeping’ practices are observed, the worksheet you produced last year should still be there and can be brought up on screen and edited and printed in a few seconds.

HfW combines the advantages of a wordprocessor with unique fonts and utility. The font has been designed follow what we believe to be currently accepted good practices in the teaching of handwriting. The utility program ‘Handwriting for Windows 3.0’ not only allows documents to be put into script fonts but also processes or ‘converts’ existing documents into handwriting with correct joins between letters.

You can see with the above example that letters join and furthermore, some of the letters have changed shape to take into account the letters they have to join to or in some cases, have joined to them.

It is also worth noting at this point that the letter ‘forms’ can be altered to suit personal preferences e.g.

Many users will prefer to start letters on the line by adding lead-in or entry strokes. This is catered for in the options section which forces all letters to start on the line.

HfW3.0 also allows you to choose various ‘looped’ styles which can be applied to the appropriate letters with descenders and/or ascenders.

The ability to choose and easily change letter shapes is one of the most useful attributes of HfW3.0.

The letter options are simply chosen from the letter option menu.

HfW3.0 has several additional features when compared to its predecessors. In addition to more wordprocessing functions, it now comes with a total of 21 fonts. Thirteen are fully fledged joining fonts, and eight more are provided which complement the joining fonts but do not join.

In each font set, there are dotted versions which students can trace over as well as semibold and bold versions. There are versions with lines, and there is even a version with construction arrows.

To get a real impression of the quality of output that HfW3.0 can produce, try downloading the following sample page which can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader®. If you do not have Acrobat Reader on your system, click on the icon below.