Lorem Ipsum is a type of filler text that has been used by the printing and typesetting industry since the 1500s. It is typically used as placeholder text in order to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document or visual presentation, such as font, typography, and layout. The text is usually a scrambled version of a passage from a piece of classical Latin literature, and has been popularized as a standard placeholder in the industry.
The Lorem Ipsum text that is commonly used today has roots that can be traced back to classical Latin literature. The text comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil), written by Cicero in 45 BC. This work is a philosophical treatise on the theory of ethics and was very popular during the Renaissance.
The passage was first recorded as being used in typesetting by an unknown printer who scrambled a passage from Cicero’s work to produce a type specimen book. It was popularized in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages. More recently, it has become ubiquitous as a placeholder text in digital typesetting, especially with the advent of desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker.
The original passage from Cicero reads:
"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."
This translates to: "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..." The Lorem Ipsum text is a jumbled version of this, altered to make it nonsensical.
Using Lorem Ipsum as a placeholder allows designers and developers to focus on visual aspects without being distracted by meaningful content. It mimics the look and feel of readable text while maintaining an even distribution of letters and spaces, which can help when designing layouts. Because it is scrambled and meaningless, it also helps prevent content from influencing design decisions.
There are a few common misconceptions about Lorem Ipsum:
In modern times, Lorem Ipsum continues to be used extensively in publishing, web design, and software development. Tools such as Lipsum.com allow users to generate Lorem Ipsum text for use in projects. Various content management systems, design software, and HTML editors incorporate Lorem Ipsum as default placeholder text in templates.
Beyond just text, Lorem Ipsum has also inspired visual design. For instance, Google Fonts includes a "Lorem Ipsum" text preview to show how different fonts will appear with standard placeholder text.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English.
Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source.
If you’re interested in learning more about the history and uses of Lorem Ipsum, here are some valuable resources: