Lorem ipsum generator

The settings and a seed are kept in the page URL, so the same link always shows the same text. Press New text for a different version. For whole rows of fake records rather than prose, use the mock data generator.

The text is a scrambled piece of sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum ("On the ends of good and evil"), written in 45 BC. The source is usually traced by Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar who found the rare word "consectetur" in Cicero and matched the passage.

It spread as filler in printing. In the 1960s Letraset sold dry-transfer sheets with lorem ipsum on them, and desktop publishing software such as Aldus PageMaker later included it, which is how it reached web design. The usual opening line is:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Because words were cut and rearranged, it is not real Latin. "Lorem" is not a Latin word at all; it is the end of "dolorem" (pain). That is the point: it has the rhythm of text without a message.

You often do not need a website for a quick block of filler. These are built in or one install away:

Microsoft Word     =lorem()       random Latin paragraphs
                   =lorem(3,5)    3 paragraphs of 5 sentences
                   =rand()        sample text in your Word language

VS Code (Emmet)    lorem + Tab    about 30 words
                   lorem10        10 words
                   p*3>lorem      three <p> tags with filler

// JavaScript: @faker-js/faker
import { faker } from '@faker-js/faker';
faker.lorem.paragraphs(3);
faker.lorem.sentence();
faker.lorem.words(5);

# Python: Faker
from faker import Faker
fake = Faker()
fake.paragraph(nb_sentences=5)
fake.text(max_nb_chars=200)

In tests, seed the generator (faker.seed(42), Faker.seed(42)) so snapshots do not change on every run. This page does the same with its seed.

• It ships to production. Before launch, search the code, CMS export and translation files for lorem and ipsum. A simple grep -ri "lorem ipsum" . catches most of it.
• Real copy is longer or shorter. German and Finnish words are long; Chinese and Japanese text is short. Test layouts with the real languages you support, not only with Latin filler.
• Screen readers and spell checkers. If filler appears in a page others test, mark it with lang="la" or use English filler, so a screen reader does not read it with English rules and reviewers are not flooded with spelling errors.
• Text hides design problems. Real headlines have long words, numbers and names that break lines in odd places. Once a layout is close, swap in real content.
• Do not use it for SEO pages. Search engines index what is on a live page. Keep staging sites with filler out of the index.

Building a UI? DevHunt lists design tools for developers, and the Markdown to HTML converter and HTML formatter help when you paste this text into a template.