Cursive Lined Paper: Free Printable Handwriting Sheets

Every sheet has the same structure: a solid top line, a dashed middle line and a red baseline, with a gap before the next set so that descenders from letters such as g, j, p, q and y have room. A name and date line sits at the top. Each file is one page and works on any printer.

The line height is the distance between the top line and the baseline, which is the space the tall letters use. The pictures below show what each size looks like with real cursive written on it.

There is no single correct size, and school programs differ. These are practical rules of thumb.

• Large (19 mm) suits young children learning the first shapes, adults relearning cursive slowly and anyone who wants big, free movements. Large writing is easier to control because every curve has room.
• Medium (12.7 mm) is a good default for most learners from about second or third grade, and for adults. It is the size where you can practice joins and words without running out of space.
• Small (8.7 mm) is close to standard wide-ruled notebook paper. Use it once your letters are consistent and you want to write at a normal size.
• Slant guides help when you can write the letters but your slant wanders from word to word.

A sensible path is to start at large for a week of shapes, drop to medium for words, and move to small when your height is consistent. If you are teaching a child, follow the line size the school uses, because the teacher's models are drawn for it. Our teach kids cursive guide has a suggested order.

1. Open the PDF and choose Print.
2. Select the paper size that matches the file (Letter or A4). If you choose the wrong one, the page may shrink or be cut off at the edges.
3. Set scaling to 100%, actual size, or none. Do not choose "fit to page" or "shrink oversized pages".
4. Print one page first and measure the large set with a ruler: from the top line to the red baseline should be 19 mm for the large sheet, 12.7 mm for medium and 8.7 mm for small.
5. For heavy practice, print on slightly thicker paper (80 gsm or more) so the pen does not show through.

The sheets are drawn to the exact sizes above, but home printers differ by a small fraction of a millimetre depending on their margins. That does not affect practice.

Slant is the lean of your letters. The most common problem in cursive is not the shape of the letters but a slant that changes: a word leaning right, then upright, then back. Guide lines give your eye a reference. On the slant sheet, the diagonal lines are drawn at 60 degrees from the baseline. That is a moderate lean. Programs use different slants, many roughly in the range of 50 to 60 degrees from the baseline, and some modern styles are almost upright. What matters is that you choose one and keep it.

• Place the long downstrokes of letters such as l, t, d, h, p along the guide lines.
• Use the guides for the first few lines, then try a line without looking at them.
• If left-handed, a more upright slant is often more comfortable. See left-handed cursive.

To learn what each letter should look like before you practice on the paper, use the cursive alphabet and the stroke-by-stroke guides.

Blank lines can be intimidating. Here is a structure for a 20-minute session.

1. Warm-up (3 min): one line of rolling ovals, one line of upward loops and one line of downward loops.
2. Letter group (6 min): write one family of letters across a line, such as a, c, d, g, q (they all start with the same oval).
3. Joins (6 min): a line each of in, an, or, ow, th and ell. See cursive joins.
4. A sentence (5 min): one sentence, slowly, with a space between each word about the width of a letter o. See the practice sentences.

For dedicated tracing pages, see the worksheets collection and the worksheet generator, which builds a custom sheet from your own text. This page is for blank paper, so you can write whatever you like.

The red baseline is the most useful line: if the bottoms of your letters touch it consistently, spacing and height usually fall into place. If a letter fills the entire space from top line to baseline, it is probably a tall letter, and small letters should reach the dashed middle line only.

The same sheets work for calligraphy practice, for children writing their names, for lettering ideas before a tattoo design and for practicing a signature. If you need lines of a different height, our worksheet generator lets you set size and content, and you can save as a PDF from your browser.