Lorem ipsum is a pseudo-Latin text used in web design, typography, layout, and printing in place of English to emphasise design elements over content. It's also called placeholder (or filler) text. It's a convenient tool for mock-ups. It helps to outline the visual elements of a document or presentation, eg typography, font, or layout. Lorem ipsum is mostly a part of a Latin text by the classical author and philospher Cicero. It's words and letters have been changed by addition or removal, so to deliberately render its content nonsensical; it's not genuine, correct, or comprehensible Latin anymore. While lorem ipsum's still resembles classical Latin, it actually has no meaning whatsoever. As Cicero's text doesn't contain the letters K, W, or Z, alien to latin, these, and others are often inserted randomly to mimic the typographic appearence of European languages, as are digraphs not to be found in the original.

In a professional context it often happens that private or corporate clients corder a publication to be made and presented with the actual content still not being ready. Think of a news blog that's filled with content hourly on the day of going live. However, reviewers tend to be distracted by comprehensible content, say, a random text copied from a newspaper or the internet. The are likely to focus on the text, disregarding the layout and its elements. Besides, random text risks to be unintendedly humorous or offensive, an unacceptable risk in corporate environments. Lorem ipsum and its many variants have been employed since the early 1960ies, and quite likely since the sixteenth century.

Lorem ispum: common examples

Most of its text is made up from sections 1.10.32–3 of Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum (On the Boundaries of Goods and Evils; finibus may alspo be translated as purposes). Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit is the first known version ("Neither is there anyone who loves grief itself since it is grief and thus wants to obtain it"). It was found by Richard McClintock, a philologist, director of publications at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia; he searched for citings of consectetur" in classical Latin literature, a term of remarkably low frequency in that literary corpus.

Cicero's version of Liber Primus (first Book), sections 1.10.32–3 (fragments included in most Lorem Ipsum variants in red):

[32] Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci[ng] velit, sed quia non numquam [do] eius modi tempora inci[di]dunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur? more

The Latin scholar H. Rackham translated the above in 1914:

[32] But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? more

Lorem Ipsum: variants and technical information

Cicero famously orated against his political opponent Lucius Sergius Catilina. Occasionally the first Oration against Catiline is taken for type specimens: Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? (How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience? And for how long will that madness of yours mock us?)

In 1985 Aldus Corporation launched its first desktop publishing program Aldus PageMaker for Apple Macintosh computers, released in 1987 for PCs running Windows 1.0. Both contained the variant lorem ipsum most common today. Laura Perry, then art director with Aldus, modified prior versions of Lorem Ipsum text from typographical specimens; in the 1960s and 1970s it appeared often in lettering catalogs by Letraset. Anecdotal evidence has it that Letraset used Lorem ipsum already from 1970 onwards, eg. for grids (page layouts) for ad agencies. Many early desktop publishing programs, eg. Adobe PageMaker, used it to create templates.

Most text editors like MS Word or Lotus Notes generate random lorem text when needed, either as pre-installed module or plug-in to be added. Word selection or sequence don't necessarily match the original, which is intended to add variety. Presentation software like Keynote or Pages use it as a samples for screenplay layout. Content management software as Joomla!, Drupal, Mambo, PHP-Nuke, WordPress, or Movable Type offer Lorem Ipsum plug-ins with the same functionality.

1. From 2007 onwards typing =lorem(i) or =lorem(i, j) in MS Word creates greeking text--don't forget to hit the enter key; i and j need to be integers, where i stands for the amount of desired paragraphs and j numbers the sentences per paragraph. j has a default value of 3 and a maximum set to 6665. >> screenshots
2. For notepad++, a Windows text editor, the InsertLoremIpsumNppPlugin can be downloaded at twenfour.com. It generates and inserts Lorem Ipsum, either as words, sentences, or paragraphs. The installation requires to copy the file InsertLoremIpsumNppPlugin.dll and the Config directory (both are contained in the zip file) to the "plugins" subdirectory of the Notepad++ installation directory. Afterwards, a new option "InsertLoremIpsum" will show in the "plugin" menu entry. A restart may be required. >> screenshots
3. For Open Office an extension named Magenta Lorem ipsum generator is available at services.openoffice.org. Once installed, an icon will be shown in a toolbar below the menu bar, with the option to insert a number of paragraphs, the maximum is set to 25. >> screenshots
4. GeanyLipsum is a plugin for Windows and Linux. It inserts Lorem Ipsum copy with a length of 1 to 5,000 chars and provides a keyboard shortcut.

5. Adobe Dreamweaver, a web development environment, has a plugin in form of a Dreamweaver object named Dreamweaver Text. It can be accessed both from the Objects menu via Common > Lorem Ipsum palette or using the Lorem Ipsum entry in the Insert > Technocurve Menu.

   An alternative, possibly more versatile, is Lorem and More. It inserts dummy copy as paragraphs, lists, and regular text. Optionally available are extracts from a speech by Cicero, corporate nonsense, and a randomised sonnet by Shakespeare. Text may be inserted in code view and design view. The tool can be accessed via the Lorem and More icon on the Common tab of the Insert bar (MX) or the Common objects panel (DW4). Else, it's accessible using the menu: Insert > Lorem and More.

6. It's easy to insert dummy copy with the Scribus text editor. Select a text frame, then chose "Sample Text" from the context menu after right-clicking. Predefined dummy copy in any languages can be set by configuring an XML file and storing it in a subdirectory "/loremipsum" of your Scribus installation. >> screenshots

Do you know of other plugins? Please tell us.