The modern forms were largely established by the time of the Han dynasty's clerical script, but continued to develop.

A simplified form known as the clerical script became the standard during the Han dynasty, and later evolved into the regular script still used today.

First, an early form of cursive developed as a cursory way to write the popular and not yet mature clerical script.

The true starting point of stroke order is the Lìshū style (clerical script) which is more regularized, and in some ways similar to modern text.

For each instance of calligraphy, an appropriate style is used, ranging from seal script (more archaic) to clerical script.

Seal script in turn evolved into the other surviving writing styles; the first writing style to follow was the clerical script.

"modern script") because it was written in the clerical script.

It emerged from a neatly written, early period semi-cursive form of clerical script.

Thus, the evolution from clerical script to standard script was not a direct step as commonly supposed.

Various other written styles are also used in Chinese calligraphy, including seal script, cursive script and clerical script.