Putting the letters together (spacing)
When you have practised the letters so that you begin to get the feel of
them and feel satisfied with most of the characters your pen produces, it's
time to put them together in a text. This involves spacing and hyphenation.
This paragraph has been printed in a typewriter font where all the letters
occupy equal space on the row. You can easily see that it's not as easy
to read as the rest of the text. An "m" is normally broader than
an "i" and needs more room. If the space occupied by every letter
is identical, distance between letters will vary. These two "mm"
will be considerably closer than these "ii".
In calligraphy, you must adapt the spacing to the form of the characters.
If a character has a round edge towards the next one, the distance can be
smaller than if two letters meet with straight lines. Thus, "bd"
will be closer than "db", since the stems need to be kept further
apart in order not to become mixed up. This is particularly important when
writing majuscules.