Lorem ipsum
Encyclopedia
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
and graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
, lorem ipsum[p] is placeholder text (filler text) commonly used to demonstrate the graphics elements of a document or visual presentation, such as font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
, typography
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
, and layout
Page layout
Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements on a page.- History and development :...
. The lorem ipsum text is typically a section of a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
text by Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
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
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, 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
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
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
Greeking
Greeking is a style of displaying or rendering text or symbols, not always from the Greek alphabet. Greeking obscures portions of a work for the purpose of either emphasizing form over details or displaying placeholders for unavailable content...
, 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: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.
History and discovery
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
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
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
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
scholar who is the publications director at Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden–Sydney College is a liberal arts college for men located in Hampden Sydney, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1775, Hampden–Sydney is the oldest private charter college in the Southern U.S., the last college founded before the American Revolution, and one of only three four-year,...
in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, by searching for citings of the rarely used Latin word "consectetur" in classical literature.
The original version (with the excerpted items highlighted) appears in Book 1, sections 1.10.32–3 (pagination varies by publisher):
- [32] Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci[ng] velit, sed quia non numquam [do] eius modi tempora inci[di]dunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?
- [33] At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus, qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti, quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint, obcaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa, qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio, cumque nihil impedit, quo minus id, quod maxime placeat, facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet, ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat...
The text does not have any occurrences of the letters K, W, or Z.
English translation
H. Rackham's 1914 translation (with major source of Lorem Ipsum highlighted):- [32] But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?
- [33] On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.
Variations
CiceroCicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's first Oration against Catiline
Catiline Orations
The Catiline Orations or Catilinarian Orations were speeches given in 63 BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the consul of Rome, exposing to the Roman Senate the plot of Lucius Sergius Catilina and his allies to overthrow the Roman government....
is sometimes used in type specimens
Typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...
: 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
Desktop publishing
Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
program Aldus PageMaker
Adobe PageMaker
PageMaker was one of the first desktop publishing programs, introduced in 1985 by Aldus Corporation, initially for the then-new Apple Macintosh and in 1987 for PCs running Windows 1.0....
in the mid-1980s for the Apple Macintosh. Art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
Laura Perry adapted older forms of the lorem text from typography
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
samples — it was, for example, widely used in Letraset
Letraset
Letraset is a company based in the Kingsnorth Industrial Estate in Ashford, Kent, UK.It is known mainly for manufacturing sheets of artwork elements which can be transferred to artwork being prepared. The name Letraset was often used to refer generically to sheets of dry transferrable lettering of...
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
Template (word processing)
The term template, when used in the context of word processing software,refers to a sample "fill-in-the-blank" document that can be completed either by handor through an automated iterative process, such as with a software assistant. Once...
.
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
Pages
Pages is a word processor and page layout application developed by Apple. It is part of the iWork productivity suite and runs on the Mac OS X & iOS operating systems. The first version of Pages was announced on January 11, 2005, and was released one month later. The most recent Macintosh version,...
and Keynote software use this jumbled text as a sample screenplay for their screenplay layout. Lorem ipsum is also featured on Joomla!
Joomla!
Joomla is a free and open source content management system for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets and a model–view–controller Web application framework that can also be used independently....
web content manager. Microsoft Office Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
2007 and 2010 have a lorem feature accessible by typing "=lorem(i)" or "=lorem(i, j)," where i and j are natural number
Natural number
In mathematics, the natural numbers are the ordinary whole numbers used for counting and ordering . These purposes are related to the linguistic notions of cardinal and ordinal numbers, respectively...
s. 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.
See also
- Asemic writingAsemic writingAsemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means "having no specific semantic content". With the nonspecificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret. All of this is similar to the way one would...
- ETAOIN SHRDLUETAOIN SHRDLUETAOIN SHRDLU is a nonsense phrase that sometimes appeared in print in the days of "hot type" publishing because of a custom of Linotype machine operators. It appeared frequently enough that it became part of the lore of newspapers...
- Filler textFiller textFiller text is text that shares some characteristics of a real written text, but is random or otherwise generated. It may be used to display a sample of fonts, generate text for testing, or to spoof an e-mail spam filter...
- GreekingGreekingGreeking is a style of displaying or rendering text or symbols, not always from the Greek alphabet. Greeking obscures portions of a work for the purpose of either emphasizing form over details or displaying placeholders for unavailable content...
- Li Europan linguesLi Europan linguesLi Europan lingues is a quotation in Occidental, an international auxiliary language devised by Edgar von Wahl in1922. It is used in some HTML templates as a fill-in or placeholder text.One of the most common placeholder texts is lorem ipsum...
- List of Latin phrases
- Metasyntactic variableMetasyntactic variableIn computer science, programmers use metasyntactic variables to describe a placeholder name or an alias term commonly used to denote the subject matter under discussion or an arbitrary member of a class of things under discussion...
- The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogThe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is an English-language pangram, that is, a phrase that contains all of the letters of the alphabet. It has been used to test typewriters and computer keyboards, and in other applications involving all of the letters in the English alphabet...
External links
- The original De finibus bonorum et malorum (Book 1) from Cicero, on Latin WikiSource.