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Lorem ipsum (lipsum for short) is the standard placeholder text used in the publishing and graphic design industry. It is often found in demonstrations of fonts and other places where typography and layout are on display. In particular, it is often used in mock-ups of visual design projects as a text placeholder, before actual copy is inserted into the finished product. When used in this manner, it is also called greeking.
Because lorem ipsum resembles a classical language (and as shown below, is derived from classical Latin), it often arouses curiosity as to what it means. Lorem ipsum itself, by design, has no meaning. When text is readable, viewers tend to focus on what the words say, so when displaying a typeface or a design, publishers use lorem ipsum to make people focus on the typeface or design and not on the content. Additionally, lorem ipsum has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters as is seen in English. This also helps to get people to not focus on the content.
The standard lorem-ipsum text, dating from the 1500s, is 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.
The text is actually copied from Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum, "On the ends of the good and the evil." The original passage began: Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit ("Nobody likes pain for its own sake, or looks for it and wants to have it, just because it is pain...")
Many variations on the standard lipsum text exist, some with very little resemblance to the original. Some versions of the text have additional letters which were uncommon or lacking in Latin — such as k, w, and z — and nonsense words such as zzril, takimata, and gubergren added to the original passage to achieve a distribution of letters that more closely approximates English.
See also: A sample of the text, List of Latin phrases
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