Lorem ipsum

Using lorem ipsum to focus attention on graphic elements in a webpage design proposal
In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum[p]¹ is placeholder text (filler text) commonly used to demonstrate the graphics elements of a document or visual presentation, such as font, typography, and layout. The lorem ipsum text is typically a section of a Latin text by Cicero with words altered, added and removed that make it nonsensical in meaning and not proper Latin.

Even though “lorem ipsum” may arouse curiosity because of its resemblance to classical Latin, it is not intended to have meaning. Where text is comprehensible in a document, people tend to focus on the textual content rather than upon overall presentation, so publishers use lorem ipsum when displaying a typeface or design elements and page layout in order to direct the focus to the publication style and not the meaning of the text. In spite of its basis in Latin, use of lorem ipsum is often referred to as greeking, from the phrase “it’s all Greek to me,” which indicates that this is not meant to be readable text.

Example text

A common form of lorem ipsum text reads as follows:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Another version of the text uses the word “adipisici” (rather than “adipisicing”; the digraph ng at the end of words is alien to classical Latin). Other versions of lorem ipsum include additional words to add variety so that repeated verses will not word-wrap on the same phrases.

A variation of the common lorem ipsum text has been used since at least the 1960s, and possibly since the sixteenth century, to provide a filler text during typesetting.

The text is derived from sections 1.10.32–3 of Cicero’s De finibus bonorum et malorum (On the Boundaries of Goods and Evils, or alternatively [About] The Purposes of Good and Evil). The original passage began: Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit (Translation: “Neither is there anyone who loves grief itself since it is grief and thus wants to obtain it”). It is not known exactly when the text acquired its current standard form; it may have been as late as the 1960s. The passage was discovered by Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar who is the publications director at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, by searching for citings of the rarely used Latin word “consectetur” in classical literature.

Variations

Cicero's first Oration against Catiline is sometimes used in type specimens: Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? . . .

Today's popular version of lorem ipsum was first created for Aldus Corporation's first desktop publishing program Aldus PageMaker in the mid-1980s for the Apple Macintosh. Art director Laura Perry adapted older forms of the lorem text from typography samples — it was, for example, widely used in Letraset catalogs in the 1960s and 1970s (anecdotes suggest that the original use of the "Lorem ipsum" text was by Letraset, which was used for print layouts by advertising agencies as early as the 1970s.) The text was frequently used in PageMaker templates.

Various pieces of software, including text editors (or plug-in modules for same), can generate semi-random "lorem text" that often has little or nothing in common with the canonical variety, other than looking like (and often being) jumbled Latin. Apple's Pages and Keynote software use this jumbled text as a sample screenplay for their screenplay layout. Lorem ipsum is also featured on Joomla! web content manager. Microsoft Office Word 2007 and 2010 have a lorem feature accessible by typing "=lorem(i)" or "=lorem(i, j)," where i and j are natural numbers. The i denotes the number of paragraphs and j (default 3) denotes the number of sentences per paragraph; the upper limit for paragraphs is 6665.