Lorem ipsum is the standard placeholder text (filler text) used in design, printing, and web development to showcase fonts and layouts without using meaningful content. It is derived from a 45 B.C. Latin text by Cicero, but is scrambled to be nonsensical. The text, popularized in the 1960s, prevents layout distractions.
Key Aspects of Lorem Ipsum:
- Origin: It comes from Cicero’s “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum,” specifically a passage starting with “Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet…” (There is no one who loves pain itself).
- Purpose: It acts as filler text that simulates the look of readable, natural language, allowing designers to focus on typography and layout, such as font size, weight, and spacing.
- Meaning: While derived from Latin, the modern version is nonsensical (“improper Latin”) and has no practical, coherent meaning.
- History: Used for centuries by typesetters, it was popularized in the 1960s via Letraset sheets and adopted into digital publishing software like Aldus PageMaker in the 1980s.
Example of the standard, commonly used text:
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.”