How to simulate old typewriter?

Question

I need to typeset a report such that it looks like it was written by an old, unreliable typewriter.

I have looked into the memoir class, however it has chapter numbering which I don't want. It also looks too clean.

I have looked into the manuscript package, but it looks way too clean for what I want.

Digging around I found a typewriter package, but it is no longer on CTAN and even getting the .sty from the author's git I can't get it to work properly: probably because it requires compiling with lualatex which I have zero experience with.

Is there an available package that does what I want easily? Namely, that makes my document look like it was written with an old, unreliable typewriter.

Alternatively, is there a way to get the typewriter package to work?

Alternatively, even just editing the memoir class such that it behaves more like article would be acceptable.

https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/344214/use-latex-to-simulate-old-typewriter-written-texts — Ulrike Fischer, Oct 09 '17 at 14:52
@UlrikeFischer Yes, the first answer to that question is the typewriter package I can't get to work. The look that answer achieves would be perfect. — Riccardo Orlando, Oct 09 '17 at 14:54
the typewriter package there was never on ctan, what error did you get? — David Carlisle, Oct 09 '17 at 14:58
Ah sorry, I didn't realize that you mean this. But Davids code works without problem for me. — Ulrike Fischer, Oct 09 '17 at 14:59
in any case the question is clearly a duplicate (the older question could usefully have some non-luatex answers) but if anyone has such an answer it could be posted there — David Carlisle, Oct 09 '17 at 15:00
I'm on the train now, so all info is from my memory... That said, first I got the "requires lualatex" error, then running lualatex myFile.tex spews out a bunch of errors that I promptly ignored, runs successfully and returns a pdf consisting of two empty pages. — Riccardo Orlando, Oct 09 '17 at 15:05
Also see https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/29402/how-do-i-make-my-document-look-like-it-was-written-by-a-cthulhu-worshipping-madm?s=1|29.7304 — John Kormylo, Oct 09 '17 at 15:19
It gives me a font \myfonts=such and such at x pt not loadable: metric data not fund or bad followed by attempt to index global 'f' (a nil value), repeated 5 times for different fonts and sizes. I can dump the terminal output on pastebin, if you want. — Riccardo Orlando, Oct 09 '17 at 15:50
Fixed. I was just missing cmuntt.otf. Now it works almost perfectly, except \maketitle appears to also produce an empty page at the beginning. I had to encase it in a {\let \newpage \relax ...} block. — Riccardo Orlando, Oct 09 '17 at 16:12
If you want memoir to emulate article then \documentclass[...,article]{memoir} (read the manual) or just to stop chapter numbering (and below) put \setsecnumdepth{part} in your preamble. — Peter Wilson, Oct 09 '17 at 17:33
@David Carlisle You,and others, have declared this to be a duplicate question but I disagree and how can I do that officially? The questioner asked about old typewriter output which already had an answer but he also asked about changing memoir as a solution which I answered in my comment. I understand that it's difficult if more than one problem/solution is suggested in a question. — Peter Wilson, Oct 10 '17 at 18:21
@PeterWilson just vote to re-open, if 5 people vote then it opens. I'll vote as well so that's 2 although it would be better if the question (and especially the title) were edited to make it not a duplicate, the title is an almost exact duplicate currently. — David Carlisle, Oct 10 '17 at 18:26
@PeterWilson Or you can raise on meta making the case. David altered me in chat, so I've used mod powers to reopen without a need for voting :) — Joseph Wright, Oct 10 '17 at 18:34
Also related, possibly: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/122970/simulate-printing-imperfections-and-defects-with-tex — Steven B. Segletes, Oct 11 '17 at 18:54

Chris H · Answer 1 · 2018-02-07T09:40:58.963

I've generated a lookup table of macros to print characters with a vertical offset that's random but consistent for each character. This covers all printable ascii characters except those that have to be escaped in LaTeX.

A few letters are used as examples of special cases for how the characters can be further modified:

T has a 50% chance of a double hit (with the underneath hit in grey).
e is so worn it's fake bold.
t has a bent arm, tilting it to the right
w has a wobbly arm resulting in a random tilt to the left

A similar approach could be used to make compound symbols (like {'\hspace{-0.5em}.} instead of !, but this doesn't work very well in cmtt).

\documentclass{article}
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{cmtt}
\renewcommand{\rmdefault}{cmtt}
\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\usepackage{xstring}
\usepackage[first=0, last=10,counter=rnd]{lcg}
\usepackage{fp}
\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage{ulem}
\newlength{\charwidth}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\BTsetupchar}[3]{\csdef{BT#1}{{\raisebox{#2 pt}{#3}}}}
\newcommand{\BTchar}[1]{\ifcsdef{BT\expandafter#1}{\csuse{BT#1}}{#1}}
\def\BTtype#1{%
    \@BTtype#1 \@empty
}
\def\@BTtype#1 #2{%
   \zz{#1}\space  
   \ifx #2\@empty\else
    \expandafter\@BTtype
   \fi
   #2%
}
\def\zz#1{\def\zzsep{}\zzz#1\relax}
\def\zzz#1{\ifx\relax#1\else\BTchar{#1}\expandafter\zzz\fi}
\makeatother

\newcommand{\rnddoublehit}[2]{%first arg is character, second is probability (expressed as 0...10 out of 10)
\rand%
\ifnum\value{rnd}<#2{%
    \settowidth{\charwidth}{#1}%
    \makebox[0 pt]{\textcolor{DarkGrey}{#1}\hspace{-0.9\charwidth}}%
}\fi%
#1%
}
\newcommand{\fakebold}[1]{%
\hspace{0.25em}\makebox[0pt]{#1}\hspace{-0.01em}\makebox[0pt]{#1}\raisebox{0.01em}{\makebox[0pt]{#1}{\hspace{-0.01em}\makebox[0pt]{#1}}}\hspace{0.25em}%
}

\newcommand{\randomrotate}[1]{%
\rand\turnbox{\value{rnd}}{#1}\phantom{#1}%
}
\newcommand{\fixedrotate}[2]{%
\turnbox{#2}{#1}\phantom{#1}%
}

\BTsetupchar{!}{0.959552631912}{!}
\BTsetupchar{"}{-0.572568292908}{"}
\BTsetupchar{'}{-0.42445901612}{'}
\BTsetupchar{(}{0.691721871811}{(}
\BTsetupchar{)}{0.446192095977}{)}
\BTsetupchar{*}{0.668289632872}{*}
\BTsetupchar{+}{0.21316900542}{+}
\BTsetupchar{,}{0.910994324343}{,}
\BTsetupchar{-}{-0.0643612216322}{-}
\BTsetupchar{.}{0.630916143844}{.}
\BTsetupchar{/}{-0.208079854503}{/}
\BTsetupchar{0}{-0.959606455046}{0}
\BTsetupchar{1}{-0.656692744652}{1}
\BTsetupchar{2}{0.715910870838}{2}
\BTsetupchar{3}{0.801503738677}{3}
\BTsetupchar{4}{-0.32605935154}{4}
\BTsetupchar{5}{-0.675172696056}{5}
\BTsetupchar{6}{0.751559563665}{6}
\BTsetupchar{7}{0.976916884466}{7}
\BTsetupchar{8}{-0.975884092147}{8}
\BTsetupchar{9}{-0.283530490249}{9}
\BTsetupchar{:}{0.883460953498}{:}
\BTsetupchar{;}{-0.157194078996}{;}
\BTsetupchar{<}{-0.856089720103}{<}
\BTsetupchar{=}{-0.462380899054}{=}
\BTsetupchar{>}{-0.127783763665}{>}
\BTsetupchar{?}{0.340250629436}{?}
\BTsetupchar{@}{0.0681232531923}{@}
\BTsetupchar{A}{-0.28199357967}{A}
\BTsetupchar{B}{-0.908136793624}{B}
\BTsetupchar{C}{0.876151420093}{C}
\BTsetupchar{D}{-0.562459892016}{D}
\BTsetupchar{E}{0.447753032908}{E}
\BTsetupchar{F}{0.949806536361}{F}
\BTsetupchar{G}{-0.83022989235}{G}
\BTsetupchar{H}{0.237512188109}{H}
\BTsetupchar{I}{0.97859690646}{I}
\BTsetupchar{J}{-0.403375721451}{J}
\BTsetupchar{K}{0.96981128078}{K}
\BTsetupchar{L}{0.796113416346}{L}
\BTsetupchar{M}{-0.366049268456}{M}
\BTsetupchar{N}{0.198166324344}{N}
\BTsetupchar{O}{-0.100789626885}{O}
\BTsetupchar{P}{-0.183992646309}{P}
\BTsetupchar{Q}{0.173168897111}{Q}
\BTsetupchar{R}{0.480851283624}{R}
\BTsetupchar{S}{-0.614801263924}{S}
\BTsetupchar{T}{0.232244730499}{\rnddoublehit{T}{5}}
\BTsetupchar{U}{-0.841735743114}{U}
\BTsetupchar{V}{0.331678931812}{V}
\BTsetupchar{W}{0.49613372548}{W}
\BTsetupchar{X}{0.845697981975}{X}
\BTsetupchar{Y}{-0.482183997158}{Y}
\BTsetupchar{Z}{0.193975227977}{Z}
\BTsetupchar{[}{0.537571176714}{[}
\BTsetupchar{]}{-0.158672666173}{]}
\BTsetupchar{`}{-0.88025147726}{`}
\BTsetupchar{a}{0.78692076979}{a}
\BTsetupchar{b}{0.649368560189}{b}
\BTsetupchar{c}{0.902390617527}{c}
\BTsetupchar{d}{0.531144863033}{d}
\BTsetupchar{e}{0.236409401365}{\fakebold{e}}
\BTsetupchar{f}{0.643224218751}{f}
\BTsetupchar{g}{-0.0139542454465}{g}
\BTsetupchar{h}{-0.147690280772}{h}
\BTsetupchar{i}{0.58033164118}{i}
\BTsetupchar{j}{-0.795721708264}{j}
\BTsetupchar{k}{0.0175291953771}{k}
\BTsetupchar{l}{0.148103630735}{l}
\BTsetupchar{m}{-0.0330127123047}{m}
\BTsetupchar{n}{0.965120551956}{n}
\BTsetupchar{o}{-0.782274884983}{o}
\BTsetupchar{p}{-0.912884787628}{p}
\BTsetupchar{q}{-0.737446301979}{q}
\BTsetupchar{r}{-0.035564484607}{r}
\BTsetupchar{s}{0.980692209771}{s}
\BTsetupchar{t}{-0.195345192206}{\fixedrotate{t}{-5}}
\BTsetupchar{u}{-0.900370841615}{u}
\BTsetupchar{v}{0.88405712738}{v}
\BTsetupchar{w}{-0.235893592391}{\randomrotate{w}}
\BTsetupchar{x}{0.529953305453}{x}
\BTsetupchar{y}{-0.494754361551}{y}
\BTsetupchar{z}{-0.861855138219}{z}
\BTsetupchar{|}{0.058513536895}{|}


\begin{document}\pagestyle{empty}
\BTtype{This text was typed by a monkey on the world's worst typewriter.  This text was typed by a monkey on the world's worst typewriter.  This text was typed by a monkey on the world's worst typewriter.  This text was typed by a monkey on the world's worst typewriter.}

\emph{\BTtype{This text is underlined using the ulem package}}
\end{document}

The lookup table was generated using python:

import random
for i in range (33,127):
    c=chr(i)
    if not c in "&%$#_{}~^\\": 
        print "\BTsetupchar{"+c+"}{"+str((random.random()-0.5)*2)+"}{"+c+"}"

I haven't tried to handle maths mode or accented letters -- in fact any control sequence or escaped special character few to the macro breaks. It is possible (as demonstrated) to emphasise the text, but the \emph{} must be on the outide.

A few more ideas:

Implement underlining with a load of \textunderscores
Fake-bold one or more characters for emphasis
Basic maths (using a handwriting font for characters not on the a standard typewriter would be a bonus)

Important sources:

Davids Carlisle's answer to What's the best way to explode a string into characters, process each character individually, and join them back?
Martin Scharrer's answer to Iterate over space-separated list

I've spotted a bug in \rnddoublehit -- the grey letter will always be a T (a hangover from how I demonstrated it) , and (similarly) the \hspace should depend on the character width even though this is constant in a typewriter font. — Chris H, Feb 07 '18 at 09:16
Awesome work. How do I make my whole document to use BTtype as a default font? — Peter B., Oct 02 '20 at 19:35

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 11 '17 at 18:36

Regarding the questions about memoir: if you don't want chapters numbered then put setsecnumdepth{part} in your preamble or, for all classes with \chapter use \chapter* to have an unnumbered title.

To make memoir output similar to that of the article class use the article option:

\documentclass[...,article]{memoir}

With this option \chapter behaves as \section, \section as \subsection and so on. This ability was introduced to help those (many) authors (or their supervisors) who could not decide between report or book class type output and an article style document without having to do extensive rewrites.

I am accepting this answer because it is the most pertinent to my original point, even though I managed to make David's code work and ultimately settled on that solution. — Riccardo Orlando, Oct 11 '17 at 19:19

How to simulate old typewriter?

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