Where does lorem ipsum come from?
When working with design drafts you'll often come upon lorem ipsum text - "dummy" text that simulates readable content. Where does it come from and who created it?
Initially, lorem ipsum was believed to be nonsensical babble. 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.
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 2000 years ago.
For those of you who are interested, here is an excerpt, translated by H. Rackham:
An unknown typesetter first used lorem ipsum text in the 1500s when he needed mock text for a type specimen book. He scrambled a few letters and used the passage as filler text. And voilá – lorem ipsum has been growing in popularity ever since!
Useful Links
- To see an example of lorem ipsum text, click here.
- If you need filler text for your own projects, we recommend the lipsum generator.
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