Joscelyn is an uncompromising secretary-hand font that provides the most realistic rendering available anywhere of a notoriously difficult Renaissance script. Below is a sample, taken from Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella. The box is editable: feel free to type your own text and experience the font live.
Louing in trueth, and fayne in verse my loue to show, That she, deare Shee, might take som pleasure of my paine, Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pittie winne, and pity grace obtaine, I sought fit wordes to paint the blackest face of woe.
If you’ve installed Joscelyn on your system and noticed that it looks different when you type there from the way it looks here (where is that big loopy high s?), that is because Joscelyn depends on several OpenType features that are enabled by default in all major web browsers and most major software, with the notable exception of Microsoft Word.
To enable these features in Word, do either of two things. 1. The easiest option is to start a document by double-clicking the Joscelyn.dotx template, and in the new document that opens, apply the “Joscelyn” character style to any stretch of text. 2. Alternatively, open the “Font” dialog box, click over to the “Advanced” tab, and check the boxes to enable “Kerning,” “Standard Ligatures” and “Contextual Alternates.” That’s all there is to it!
To download Joscelyn, click here.