What is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem Ipsum is placeholder text used by designers and typesetters to fill layouts before final copy is available. Because it resembles natural Latin, it avoids the distraction of readable words — the eye focuses on typography and spacing instead of meaning.
Where does it come from?
The text is derived from De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil), a philosophical work by the Roman statesman Cicero, written in 45 BC. The standard Lorem Ipsum passage beginning "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…" is a scrambled excerpt from Book I, sections 32 and 33, with some words altered or removed.
The connection was rediscovered in 1994 by Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, who traced the unusual phrase consectetur back to the original Cicero text.
Why use placeholder text at all?
When a layout contains recognisable words or sentences, readers tend to focus on the text's meaning rather than the design. Nonsensical or foreign-language filler keeps attention on visual hierarchy, font choice and white space — which are the things a designer is actually trying to evaluate at that stage.
Worked example
Selecting 2 paragraphs produces two blocks of Lorem Ipsum separated by a blank line. Each paragraph contains four to six sentences, and every run always opens with the classic first sentence so it is instantly recognisable as placeholder text.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Lorem Ipsum real Latin?
- It is based on real Latin, but the words have been scrambled and some removed, so the passage does not make grammatical sense.
- Can I use Lorem Ipsum in a published design?
- It is conventional to replace placeholder text before publication. Leaving it in is generally considered an oversight.
- Does the generator produce the same text every time?
- The first sentence is always the classic opening. Subsequent sentences are assembled from the standard Lorem Ipsum word pool and vary on each run.