What is handLaTeX for?

handLaTeX brings generation of believable handwritten documents to LaTeX:

A longer, vectorial sample is available in PDF here (source there).

Where to Start?

Have a look at the release notes. The precompiled hand package manual (in PDF), is also available.

A Note on Fonts

handLaTeX does not include any font, yet good fonts will be what will make handLaTeX worth using. There are a couple of reasons for that:

• Supported font systems (Metafonts, Type1, Truetype, Opentype, Apple Advanded Typography, etc.) are largely bound to specific LaTeX distributions, OS and document targets. handLaTex being a generic LaTeX 2e package and driver, it didn't make sense to include any.

• It is generally possible to find good, free fonts suiting your local LaTeX requirements on specialized sites, such as the Fountain Pen Frenzy Truetype police used in the examples above.

• Many commercial OSes and softwares are bundled with sets of fonts that will work for you, such as the Zapfino calligraphic typeface coming with Mac OS X.

• About any kind of fonts can be designed using the right tools such as Fontforge anyway: it is a tedious process, but even a non-artist can create a usable typeface in a few hours.