Where does lorem ipsum come from?

When working with design drafts you may have come across lorem ipsum filler text. Where does lorem ipsum come from and who created it?

Initially, lorem ipsum was believed to be gibberish. Thanks to Latin professor Richard McClintock, however, we now know better. He stumbled upon the passage while looking for citings of the word 'consectetur' in classical literature.

As it turns out, lorem ipsum is a passage from a treatise on ethics (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Marcus Tullius Cicero written more than 2,000 years ago.

Here is an excerpt, translated by H. Rackham:

Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because 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?

An unknown typesetter first used lorem ipsum in the 1500s when he needed mock text for a type specimen book. He scrambled a few letters and used the passage as a filler. Lorem ipsum has been growing in popularity ever since!

To see an example of lorem ipsum text, click here.