Where does Lorem Ipsum actually come from?

Lorem Ipsum is not random gibberish. It originates from "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (On the Ends of Good and Evil), a treatise on ethics written by the Roman statesman Cicero in 45 BC. The standard passage beginning "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." is a scrambled excerpt from Section 1.10.32, which discusses the philosophy of pleasure and pain. A typesetter in the 1500s scrambled the Latin to create a specimen book, and it has been the industry-standard placeholder text ever since. Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar at Hampden-Sydney College, traced its origins in the 1980s.

Why use Lorem Ipsum instead of real text?

Real content in a mockup causes reviewers to read and critique the words rather than evaluate the layout, typography, and visual hierarchy. Lorem Ipsum has a roughly normal distribution of letters and word lengths, so it mimics the visual rhythm of English prose without being distracting. This lets designers focus feedback on font choices, spacing, and composition. When your layout is finalized, you can write Lorem Ipsum in Markdown format for structured content drafts.

Does Lorem Ipsum hurt SEO?

Yes, publishing Lorem Ipsum on a live site is harmful to SEO. Search engines interpret placeholder text as thin or incomplete content, which can lead to lower rankings or even manual quality penalties. Always replace all placeholder text with real, relevant copy before deploying to production. You can use our Diff Checker to compare placeholder text variations against your final copy and ensure nothing was missed.

What are alternatives to Lorem Ipsum?

Several alternatives exist depending on your needs. "Hipster Ipsum" and "Bacon Ipsum" add humor but can still distract reviewers. A better approach is using realistic but anonymized content that matches the expected tone and length of the final text. For technical documentation, structured nonsense in the target language is preferable. Some designers prefer using actual draft copy early on, arguing it forces better content-first design decisions. The key principle is that your placeholder should match the visual weight and character distribution of the real content.

How much placeholder text should I use for mockups?

The amount depends on the context. For headlines, use 5-10 words to test line breaks at various screen widths. For body copy, generate 2-3 paragraphs per content block to simulate realistic reading flow. For card-based layouts, vary the length between cards to stress-test your design with both short and long entries. The worst mistake is using uniform-length text everywhere, because real content is never uniform. Always test your layout with both the minimum and maximum expected content lengths.

Can Lorem Ipsum be used in production apps for testing?

Yes — Lorem Ipsum is a useful tool for QA and automated testing. Seed your test database with generated paragraphs to stress-test text rendering, truncation logic, and responsive layouts. Some teams generate randomized-length Lorem blocks to simulate real-world variability (some users write two sentences, others write five paragraphs). Just make sure your CI pipeline includes a check that no Lorem Ipsum remains in release builds — a simple regex search for lorem ipsum in your output HTML will catch it.

Lorem Ipsum Generator

Free online Lorem Ipsum generator for placeholder text in paragraphs, sentences, or words with customizable count