Old time ransom notes had a certain panache - letters and words cropped from various sources and assembled in an ominous dada. It should be easy to write a Word macro to generate a comparable mix. One would switch fonts either randomly within a word, with every letter, for every new word or for groups of words. Adjustable variables to mix up could include font, size, capitalization, bold/italic and color of letter.
The Tom Sawyer extreme would actually replicate what the ransomers did. A block of text cropped from the original would be googled and the corresponding text from random result pasted into the message to replace the original, keeping the font etc from the search result. If a given block of text generated no hits it would be shrunken by one word until a hit was found.
The extreme version of this macro would append a .gif of a severed ear or pinky finger at the end of every generated message, so all parties know business is meant.-- bungston, Mar 07 2008 Text Generated From An Online Site: http://kunarion.com...nnounce_letters.jpgThis is makes for a less formal and stuffy wedding announcement, don't you think? [Amos Kito, Mar 08 2008] ... This Site: http://www.joshuare...GoToFood=0oToFood=0Type something to get a custom note, using a random selection of scanned alphabetic images. [Amos Kito, Mar 08 2008] I would love the option of not using this on my computer. [+]-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 07 2008 I Lo V E This IdEa !++++++-- blissmiss, Mar 08 2008 They may be able to figure out who had this program, narrowing down their list of suspects. That could be avoided, but it would probably be easier to just do it the old way.-- apocalyps956, Mar 08 2008 But if they did it "EaSIER", this wouldn't be an idea on the halfbakery, now would it?-- blissmiss, Mar 08 2008 There are already many "ransom note" fonts with multiple sets of alternates for each letter. Since there are a very limited number of web-safe fonts I am afraid that this is not a very exciting idea.-- WcW, Mar 08 2008 Right, [WcW]. It should look as close as possible to letters torn from magazines and glued individually to paper. The [Links] show how it might be accomplished, although it doesn't apply the letters at odd angles, which I think would be a nice touch.-- Amos Kito, Mar 08 2008 This is so great! + (Cuts a croissant picture from a cookbook and pastes here___)-- xandram, Mar 08 2008 Bad!
Bad autoboner!-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 08 2008 random, halfbakery