How to Write the Letter P in Calligraphy and Cursive
The capital P is a stem with a bowl at the top. The lowercase p drops below the baseline and comes back up to make its bowl, which is the move most people get wrong.
Updated
School cursive
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Capital PSchool cursive
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Lowercase p
Height
Lowercase drops to the descender line with no loop
A cursive capital P is a slanted stem pulled down from the top line, retraced back up, and finished with a bowl that curves forward and closes against the stem at the midline. A lowercase cursive p starts with an undercurve to the midline, drops a straight stroke below the baseline, retraces back up, and makes a small rounded bowl that closes at the baseline before an undercurve out.
How to write P in cursive, step by step
The steps follow a Zaner-Bloser-style school cursive. The capital P, B and R start with the same stem and retrace, so this motion is worth learning once and well.
Capital P
Start at the top line. Pull a slanted stroke down to the baseline.
Retrace back up the stem to the top line.
Curve forward to the right and around, forming a bowl in the top half of the letter.
Bring the bowl back to touch the stem at the midline and stop. In school cursive the capital P does not join.
The bowl should fill the space between the top line and the midline and no more. Some older models start the P with a small entry loop at the top; the shape of the bowl is the same either way.
Lowercase p
Start at the baseline and make an undercurve up to the midline.
Pull a straight slant stroke down through the baseline to the descender line.
Retrace back up the same stroke to the baseline and a little above.
Overcurve up to the midline, round over, and curve down and back to close the bowl against the stem at the baseline.
Exit with an undercurve.
The retrace is what makes it a p and not a j. The pen goes down and comes back up the same line, with no loop below the baseline in this model. Some older copybook styles do loop the descender, which is fine as long as you are consistent.
12 ways to write P
Styles mostly differ in how they treat the stem and how big they make the bowl. Copperplate and Spencerian capitals often start with a large oval flourish and shade the stem heavily, with the bowl as a thin hairline. Gothic and italic use a straight stem and a narrow, angular bowl, and their lowercase p often has a small serif at the foot of the descender. Brush and bouncy modern styles tend to enlarge the bowl and shorten the stem.
For a monogram, the P is a good letter to flourish, because its long stem gives a clear line to build around.
Common mistakes with P
the lowercase p's downstroke stops short of the descender line, so the p looks like an n
the lowercase p's bowl closes above the baseline or away from the stem, leaving a gap
the end of the capital P's bowl trails below the midline, so the P reads as an R
the stem is not retraced, so the capital P's bowl starts from a separate line beside the stem
If you fix one thing, fix the lowercase descender. It needs to reach the descender line, about as deep as the tail of a g or j, so the p does not shrink into an n.
Joining P to other letters
The lowercase p closes its bowl at the baseline and leaves with an undercurve, so it joins from below like most letters. "Pe" and "pa" are the first drills. "Pl", as in "please" and "apple", sends the exit up to the top line for the l's loop. "Pr" and "po" both have to reach the midline and then turn, for the r's shoulder or the o's oval, and they show whether the bowl is closing low enough to leave room for the climb.
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Pa
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Pe
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Pl
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Po
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Pr
The capital P does not join in school cursive. Leave a small space after it and start the next letter with its own entry stroke.
Practice P
The P sheet starts with rows of the stem-and-retrace motion, then the capital P, the lowercase p and the joins to trace. Print it at 100% scale on US Letter or A4.
What is the difference between a cursive P, R and B?
All three share the stem and the retrace. The P stops when its bowl touches the stem at the midline. The R carries on with a leg that kicks out to the baseline, and the B adds a second, slightly larger bowl that reaches the baseline. If your P keeps reading as an R, the end of the bowl is trailing below the midline. The letter R page shows the R steps.
Why does my lowercase p look like an n?
The descender is too short. When the downstroke stops near the baseline, the bowl and the entry stroke read as two humps. Make the downstroke go all the way to the descender line, and retrace back up before you make the bowl. Writing the pair "pn" several times makes the difference easy to see.
Does the cursive lowercase p have a loop?
In Zaner-Bloser-style cursive, no. The downstroke is retraced, so there is one line below the baseline. Older Palmer-era handwriting and some ornamental scripts loop the descender, making it look like a j with a bowl. If you learned a looped p and it reads clearly, there is no need to change it.
Where does the letter P come from?
P comes from the Phoenician letter pe, often linked to the word for mouth. The Greeks wrote it as pi, with two legs. The Romans curved the top of one leg into a closed bowl, which gave the P its modern shape. That is also why the Latin P looks like the Greek letter rho, which stands for the R sound.
