An Interesting History
The history of Lorem Ipsum is really interesting.
It’s Latin — Sorta
One thing that no one questions is that Lerem Ipsum is based upon Latin. What’s more, that Latin dates back to 45 BCE in Cicero’s first book of De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (“On the Extremes of Good and Evil”).
There are a few passages taken from the book. But the main one — that includes “lorem ipsum” — is “qui dolorem ipsum.” According to Google Translate, this means “their distressing anguish and the very.”
When It Became Dummy Text
At one time, Lorem Ipsum was thought to be nonsense words. But in the late 1990s, Richard McClintock found the phrase in the 1914 edition of The Loeb Classical Library De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum.
In it, on page 35, the last word is “dolorem.” However, it is hyphenated. So “do-” is on page 35 and “lorem ipsum” is at the top of page 36. So he used this information to find the other parts of Lorem Ipsum.
First Try: 400 Years
At first, McClintock thought the use of Lorem Ipsum dated back over 400 years.
But this belief was based on the memory of seeing very old metal type samples. But when he looked again, he could not find them.
Lorem Ipsum Is Newer
Latraset dry-transfer lettering sheet cropped for image in public domain
His work, and later work by Philippe Cibois, showed that Lorem Ipsum started to be used as a text placeholder seemed to date much later.
They seem to have come from there use on Letraset transfer sheets. These are sheets graphic artists used before computers where they would cut out letters (or in this case, whole phrases). The letters were adhesive-backed, so they could simply be attached to the design page.
Since Letraset opened for business in 1959, most people think Lorem Ipsum started in the 1960s. One thing is certain: it was some time after 1914.
Pagemaker and Beyond
Use of Lorum Ipsum really took off in the 1980s when Aldus (later Adobe) Pagemaker and other computer desktop publishing programs used it.
That’s when it became a real standard. Now it is used in any number of industries and their respective applications.
Quick Copy and Paste
Sometimes, rather than using a tool, it is easier to just copy and paste standard Lorem Ipsum into your documents. So we’ve put together a couple of examples for you.
Plain Text
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem.
Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Integer tincidunt.
Cras dapibus. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Donec vitae sapien ut libero venenatis faucibus. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui.
Etiam rhoncus. Maecenas tempus, tellus eget condimentum rhoncus, sem quam semper libero, sit amet adipiscing sem neque sed ipsum. Nam quam nunc, blandit vel, luctus pulvinar, hendrerit id, lorem.
Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus.
Stylized Text
Lorem ipsum
Dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim.
- Donec pede justo
- Fringilla vel
- Aliquet nec
- Vulputate eget
- Arcu.
In enim justo
Rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus.
Aenean vulputate natoque eleifend tellus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet.