Beech and Mayall (2005) reported that masked priming of external features of a printed word (the tops and bottoms) facilitated perception to a greater extent than internal features. This experiment explored whether this external feature advantage holds in the perception of handwritten words. Previous research has suggested that configural processes are recruited to a greater extent in the perception of handwritten than typewritten words (Barnhart & Goldinger 2013). If true, then the word shape information provided by the external features should have added utility in priming the perception of the complete handwritten word. Participants completed a word naming task with handwritten and typewritten words preceded by masked primes containing the external or internal features of each word. We recorded verbal response times to name each word. A repeated-measures ANOVA showed that there was no significant Script by Prime Type interaction, and the external primes did not reduce naming times to a greater extent for cursive than for typewritten words. A greater external feature advantage for cursive stimuli would have supported the notion that configural processes hold more utility in the perception of handwritten words, a theory that has largely been discounted in the word perception literature due to overreliance on typewritten stimuli.