This is a script I've written (AppleScript) that addresses the problem most handwriting fonts have — they look like fonts, mostly because they're settled so regularly along the baseline and their glyphs are so uniform.
It began as a way for me to address a need for a project I was working on, something designed to look like a scrapbook. I was using the "Journal" typeface designed by Fontourist (http://www.dafont.com/journal.font), which gave me a good balance of readability and organic feel, but of course it had the same issues as all other fonts of its ilk.
To address that I wrote a script to trawl the taxt frames in a specified CS5 INDD document, looking fist to see if they had that font as their active one, after which the script shifts each glyph up or down the baseline by a random amount, gives each glyph a random stroke weight change, and finally tints each glyph a random amount off of its basic tint.
Each of these changes is very subtle, with the result being something that looks considerably more organic and hand-made than the font did out of the can. The script should be easily modified by anyone who wants to run it using a different font instead of "Journal". Here it is. Enjoy!
--
-- This script changes the baseline offset, stroke width, and color tint
-- of any type set in the "Journal" typeface to randomized values, giving
-- the text a much more organic look and feel.
-- Written by Warren Ockrassa, http://indigestible.nightwares.com/
-- Free to use, modify and distribute, but I'd prefer attribution.
-- Note that this script can take quite a while to execute with larger
-- or more complex files.
set theItem to 0
set theItem to choose file with prompt "Select a CS5 InDesign document to modify..."
if theItem is not equal to 0 then
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5"
open theItem
tell active document
-- Determine how many text frames we need to change
set myFrames to the number of text frames
if myFrames is not equal to 0 then
set theFrame to 1
repeat until theFrame > myFrames
set myText to text frame theFrame
set myFont to applied font of character 1 of myText as string
-- Check to make sure we're only modifying text frames
-- that have been set in the "Journal" typeface
if word 1 of myFont is "Journal" then
repeat with thisCharacter in (characters of myText)
-- Randomize the values of baseline shift, stroke, and tint
set baselineShift to ((random number from -5 to 5) / 10)
set strokeWeight to (((random number 10)) / 100)
set myTint to (100 - (random number 10))
set fillColor to fill color of thisCharacter
set baseline shift of thisCharacter to baselineShift
set stroke color of thisCharacter to fillColor
set stroke weight of thisCharacter to strokeWeight
set fill tint of thisCharacter to myTint
set stroke tint of thisCharacter to myTint
end repeat
end if
set theFrame to (theFrame + 1)
end repeat
end if
end tell
end tell
beep
display dialog "Modifications finished!" buttons {"Groovy!"} default button 1
else
display dialog "Operation cancelled" buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end if