Blur the text so it's not readable

Question

On a related note to How do I make my document look like it was written by an Cthulhu worshipping madman?, I want to create a LaTeX command that blurs the text so it's unreadable.

Unfortunately, whatever I google to get ideas on how to do this, I find forum posts from everyone and his aunt having problems with the fonts being blurry. Nothing about how to get there...

Answer 1

Using a variation of the technique Dissecting paragraphs with \lastbox described in Section 5.9.6 of TeX by Topic, you can produce a blur effect; the idea is to use two copies for each line and typeset the line and its copies superimposed:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\newbox\flinebox 
\newbox\slinebox
\newbox\mlinebox
\def\duplines{\setlength\parindent{0pt}
  \setbox\flinebox\lastbox
  \ifvoid\flinebox\relax
  \else
  \setbox\slinebox\hbox{\copy\flinebox}
  \setbox\mlinebox\hbox{\copy\flinebox}
  \unskip\unpenalty
  {\duplines}
  \box\flinebox\vspace*{-2.3ex}
  \box\mlinebox\vspace*{-2.3ex}
  \box\slinebox \fi
}

\newcommand\BlurText[1]{%
  \vbox{#1\par\duplines}}

\begin{document}

\BlurText{\lipsum[1]}

\end{document}

In a comment, doncherry suggested horizontally shifting the layers to decrease legibility; this can be done using this definition of \duplines:

\def\duplines{\setlength\parindent{0pt}
  \setbox\flinebox\lastbox
  \ifvoid\flinebox\relax
  \else
  \setbox\slinebox\hbox{\copy\flinebox}
  \setbox\mlinebox\hbox{\copy\flinebox}
  \unskip\unpenalty
  {\duplines}
  \box\flinebox\vspace*{-2.4ex}
  \makebox[\textwidth]{\hspace*{2pt}\box\mlinebox}\vspace*{-2.4ex}
  \makebox[\textwidth]{\hspace*{4pt}\box\slinebox}\fi
}

and defining \BlurText as before, here's the new result of \BlurText{\lipsum[1]}:

And a little modification using some color:

\usepackage{xcolor}

and in \duplines:

  {\color{black!50}\box\flinebox\vspace*{-2.4ex}
  \makebox[\textwidth]{\hspace*{2pt}\box\mlinebox}\vspace*{-2.4ex}
  \makebox[\textwidth]{\hspace*{4pt}\box\slinebox}}