In this paper, a method is proposed for offline signature verification. It is based on a smoothness criterion. It is observed that the cursive segments of forgery signatures are generally less smooth and less natural than the genuine ones, especially for those signatures that consist of cursive graphic patterns. Two approaches are proposed to extract a smoothness feature: a crossing method and a fractal dimension method. When the proposed smoothness feature is combined with other global shape features for signature verification, satisfactory results are obtained.