Mirror Writing

Specular writing, also known as mirror writing, is a writing technique where letters and words are flipped horizontally (symmetrically), as if reflected in a mirror. Thus the produced text can be read correctly when observed in a mirror.

Automatic method: use dCode, indicate your text (with several handwriting renderings) or an image.

Manual method: to make this operation by hand, the best way is to use a mirror and rewrite it by looking at 45°.

The result generated on dCode is an image that can be copy-pasted into a word processor or an email but on most websites that will not work because they do not provide this functionality.

Leonardo da Vinci is known to have written some notes with a mirror writing, probably to avoid an encryption while retaining a reasonable write speed.

This technique probably allowed him to keep his notes private and also helped protect his ideas and findings, they could only be read through a mirror (and not everyone had one).

Leonardo was left-handed and it is slightly easier to write from right to left for a left-handed person.

Mirror writing is sometimes used on ambulances or police vehicules in order to be read through a back-viewer.

Some people, often forced right-handed, testify to write easily / regularly in the mirror, for pleasure or because they have the feeling that their hand prefers this mode of writing.

More generally, it's a fun way to hide text and make it less readable.

The default Leonard de Vinci 1 font is a Behance creation here (non-commercial license)

The font 2 is called Leonardo Hand Forward is a creation of typo969 here (non-commercial use license)

The other fonts are Microsoft fonts (Arial and Comic Sans)

Mirror writing presents a challenge for reading because the brain is used to processing words in a specific sense. Reading mirrored text takes longer to recognize letters and mentally reorganize words to understand them. Some people don't succeed at all.

Mirror writing consists of horizontally reversing a text, while an ambigram can be read by rotation. Ambigrams exploit axial symmetry while mirror writing is limited to horizontal or vertical symmetry.