Hi,
when I look at the right hand side of 放 (fang) in skritter, it seems a different shape from how it is in the dictionary, that is the top two strokes don't meet in the same place. I've noticed this in a few other characters that include that section too.
Is this because skritter is more like handwriting?
Rachael.

This is what I would attribute to a font difference. You'll find that there are many cases where different fonts will have different stroke shapes. For example, the first stroke in 言 (yan2) sometimes appears as a horizontal stroke similar to the 3rd and 4th. I STILL can't get my head around the way strokes 5 and 6 differ in some versions of 令 (ling4). The way it appears for me on this site is how I learned, but some fonts' stroke 5 and 6 look kinda like the bottom part of 节.

Yup, you've nailed it--font differences. Usually Skritter follows a more handwritten style, so it's a better model than a print font. Sometimes we have just created the character uglily, but that's less frequent for common characters since so many people have reviewed them.

Haha, in fact, when I view this thread on my computer at work, those very characters I cited show up as I described! I must have some sort of ugly font installed here D: