Sign grouping

The basic rule of Middle Egyptian writing is ``scribes hate voids''. So the signs tend to fill the available space. Compare the following text:

with the way it's really written:

The aesthetic considerations are very important in hieroglyphs. Sometimes, sign-order is changed for the sake of space-filling only. For writing , ``this'', the normal form is , but a space is left after the bird. So, the word is often written: .