I'm aware that one way of creating the effect in Vegas is to using masking. I haven't been able to locate an actual effect similar to the "Write-on-effect" Premiere Pro offers as shown in the Youtube video below.

"The Write-on Effect with the look like using light painting in Adobe Premiere Pro"
‪The Write-on Effect with the look like using light painting in Adobe Premiere Pro‬‏ - YouTube (http://youtu.be/Qk6ry_e0ngQ)

I see that BCC has a Type-on-effect as demonstrated by John here, but not sure if BCC can actually simulate handwriting.
Type-On Text in Sony Vegas Pro : Boris FX Tutorial (http://library.creativecow.net/rofrano_john/BCCVegasPro_Episode-09/1)

Does Vegas have a plug-in for handwriting and if not what alternatives are there for this popular effect?

I have used Heroglyph for handwriting...
proDAD Video Titling Heroglyph Beispiele (http://www.prodad.com/home/products/videotiteling/heroglyph/300049059/samples,l-us.xhtml)

The interface is, well... unique, and the plug-in does not use keyframes, it means that it takes a little while to get hang of it. You can create fantastic effects in a few seconds with heroglyph, stuff that would take days in AE.

The site only lists "Sony Movie Studio HD Platinum 10" as compatible, not Vegas Pro 10, so maybe support for SVP has been dropped, but it's the only plugin I can think of that can do handwriting
/m

Boris Red might offer this capability. I haven't researched it so I can't be sure but here is a tutorial that might tell you more. Paint System (http://www.borisfx.com/videos/RED/Paint-System.php)

For anyone looking for a lesson in how not to make a tutorial, this also offers a great deal of guidance! At a guess I would say it was made for an earlier version of Boris Red and was updated to Red 4. See if you can work out why I say that . . . ;-)

Hi Magnus

My heroglyph works pretty well as a plugin in Vegas Pro 9 so it should work in 10 as well...now, whether it works on the 64 bit version is another story!!! I'm running XP Pro and VP9 in 32 bit.

The writing is really easy to do as well!! There is a full tutorial on how to do handwriting on the Prodad website too!!!

Chris