Ask LaTeX to italicize a font algorithmically

I'm using a font which is upright, and has no italic equivalent. When I ask Microsoft Word to italicize some text typeset in that font, Word "algorithmically" computes the way it should look, and gives you the allusion that it is italic.

Here's an example: The first line is the normal font, and the second is italicized by Word. It's not in English, but just looking at the picture gives you the feel that the second line is italic:

Although the results never look perfect, I believe it's better than nothing.

LaTeX's approach is to give you a warning, and then replace the italic text with the normal one:

LaTeX Font Warning: Font shape `EU1/XYZ(1)/m/it' undefined
(Font)              using `EU1/XYZ(1)/m/n' instead on input line 1.

Is there a way to ask LaTeX to algorithmically italicize the text?

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PS: I currently use the fontspec package to ask LaTeX to typeset all italic texts with another font:

\setmainfont{XYZ}[ItalicFont={ABC}]

But it's not a neat approach.