Craig Snyder · October 19, 2019 · 5 min read If you deal with written text or design at school or work, there’s a chance that you’ve needed to fill an area with dummy text. Many people will just mash away at their keyboard or repeatedly paste the same word to achieve this, but that’s a very unsightly way of doing it.
Not only is it aesthetically displeasing, but it’s also ineffective. There’s actually a science behind using a particular type of dummy text, and that text is called “lorem ipsum”.
In this article, let’s go over why lorem ipsum is the ideal filler text and how you can easily generate it.
What Is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem ipsum is a specific style of placeholder text derived from Latin. However, it’s not a real language and has no literal translation, which is completely intentional.
You may wonder, “Why would publishers or designers use some confusing jargon as dummy text?” Well, for its purpose, lorem ipsum may actually be less confusing than paragraphs written in English.
Lorem ipsum cannot be perfectly translated or understood, and that keeps it from being a distraction. The purpose of dummy text is to fill the page with copy that looks real, and at a glance, lorem ipsum is exactly that.
The most common passage of lorem ipsum text is as follows:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing 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.
As you can see, it includes words of varying lengths that use vowels and consonants in a way that appears very natural. It looks real, but it’s not.
If you’re interested in learning more about lorem ipsum, its root, and rough translations, Lipsum.com is a great resource and the first lorem ipsum generator that we’ll review below.
How To Generate Lorem Ipsum Dummy Text
Lorem ipsum is more than just the paragraph cited earlier in this article, and there are generators that can create an overwhelming amount of dummy text following this same Latin style. Let’s go over some of the best ones.
Lipsum.com
Lipsum.com is not only one of the best websites for generating lorem ipsum dummy text, but it’s also a great resource for learning about it.
On its homepage, Lipsum.com provides a detailed explanation of what lorem ipsum is, where it comes from, why we use it, and how you can generate it. For the latter, you won’t need to look far.
Lipsum.com will allow you to generate a maximum of 150 paragraphs of lorem ipsum text. From what I’ve noticed, all 150 paragraphs are unique and structured differently from another. It won’t generate two paragraphs that are the same.
At the bottom of the page with your generated placeholder text, you can see statistics for the total number of paragraphs, words, and bytes.
LoremIpsum.io
The generator at LoremIpsum.io provides some added flexibility that you won’t find at Lipsum.com, at the expense of not counting the total paragraphs, words, and bytes at the end.
LoremIpsum.io allows you to generate filler text in paragraphs, sentences, or words. It’s a great solution if you only need a few sentences, which Lipsum.com doesn’t support.
Another added bonus is the inclusion of the Copy button. On Lipsum.com, you’ll need to highlight all of the text and copy it manually. Here, you can simply click on that button, and your generated text will be instantly copied to your clipboard for pasting.
Where LoremIpsum.io really shines, though, is in its creativity and options. Along with its basic lorem ipsum generator, the site offers 44 others. Here are just a few:
- Hodor Ipsum — Lorem ipsum text with a Game of Thrones flavor
- Trump Ipsum — A political take on placeholder text
- Veggie Ipsum — Dummy text with a major bias towards vegetables
There are quite a lot of funny and interesting lorem ipsum alternatives on this site, and while they may not be as effective as the original, they’re a great gag.
Additionally, if you’re looking for a lorem ipsum equivalent for images, LoremIpsum.io provides a directory of 21 placeholder image generators.
UnsquiggledIpsum.com
While the above two websites should have everything you need for your basic placeholder text needs, UnsquiggledIpsum.com covers such an interesting and important niche.
This website generates variants of lorem ipsum text that will be accepted by a broad range of spell checkers. To do this, the website replaces standard lorem ipsum with its nearest Latin-sounding approximation.
UnsquiggledLipsum.com offers one of the most brilliant spins on lorem ipsum that we’ve ever seen, and it’s not just for giggles—it actually serves a legitimate purpose. Those squiggly red lines can become a nuisance.
The website has support for US and UK English spell-checking, based on the dictionaries in Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Google Docs, LibreOffice, Word 2000, and Office 365. It can generate up to 40 full paragraphs or 2,000 words.
You don’t have to be a dummy to use dummy text, and we hope you’ve learned something during this quick lesson on the history and use of lorem ipsum!
