LaTeX macro to obfuscate text as an image (to prevent selecting, parsing, ...)

gistfile1.tex

\makeatletter
\newcount\@imagecount
\newcommand\showasimage[1]{%
  \global\advance\@imagecount 1
  \edef\x{image-\the\@imagecount}%
  \immediate\write18{echo '\unexpanded{\font\1=}\fontname\font' > \x.tex}%
  \immediate\write18{echo '\unexpanded{\1#1\nopagenumbers\bye}' >> \x.tex}%
  \immediate\write18{pdftex \x.tex}%
  \immediate\write18{pdf2ps -dNoOutputFonts \x.pdf \x.ps}
  \immediate\write18{ps2pdf \x.ps \x.pdf}
  \immediate\write18{pdfcrop --hires \x.pdf \x.pdf}
  \settodepth{\@tempdima}{#1}%
  \raisebox{-\the\@tempdima}{\includegraphics{\x.pdf}}%
}
\AtEndDocument{%
  \loop
    \immediate\write18{rm image-\the\@imagecount.*}%
    \advance\@imagecount-1
    \ifnum\@imagecount>0\repeat
}
\makeatother

Note that this requires passig --shell-escape to pdflatex.