Aside from the fact that words are often little and crammed together, the size of your handwriting may shrink as you continue to write. Micrographia is caused by the same brain mechanisms that underlie the disease's other movement symptoms. As these mechanisms malfunction, they also cause certain muscles not to fire properly, which results in writing that is small and cramped. This article was written by staff members of The Muse. It originally appeared in a magazine published by the Alzheimer's Association. Both Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat Reader have built-in tools for creating PDF files. If you open or save a document in one of these programs, it will make an icon for viewing this file type. You can view these documents even if you don't have Adobe Reader installed on your computer.