Last checked by the TextEditor.com team
Where lorem ipsum comes from
Lorem ipsum is cut from a real book. The Roman writer Cicero wrote De finibus bonorum et malorum, "On the ends of good and evil", in 45 BC. The filler text comes from book 1, sections 32 and 33, a passage about pleasure and pain.
The words were cut up, dropped and changed. "Lorem" is not a Latin word at all. It is the end of "dolorem", which means pain. That is why the text reads like Latin but makes no sense.
Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
"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." H. Rackham's English translation, 1914.
The marked words survive in lorem ipsum. Some are cut in half, like do|lorem and eius|mod.
From a Roman book to your screen
- 45 BC Cicero writes De finibus.
- 1914 The Loeb Classical Library prints the Latin with H. Rackham's translation. Page 34 ends with "qui do", and page 36 starts with "lorem ipsum". This page break may be where the cut began.
- 1966 Letraset prints lorem ipsum on its dry transfer sheets. Designers rub the letters onto paper to show where text will go. According to Letraset designer Dave Farey, the text came from British librarian James Mosley.
- 1994 Latin scholar Richard McClintock writes that the text has been used since the 1500s. In a 2026 interview he said that date was a guess with nothing to back it up.
- Today Word makes it with =lorem(), and code editors make it with a short command.
Dates and names come from the Lorem ipsum article on Wikipedia, checked November 2026.
Why designers use fake text
When a page is still a sketch, real words pull the eye. People start to read and comment on the wording, not on the layout. Text in a language nobody reads shows the shape of a page without that problem.
Lorem ipsum also has a natural mix of short and long words, so lines break the way real text does. Typing "text text text" or the same word again and again gives even lines that look wrong.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
Consectetur adipiscing 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.
Look at the right edge of the text. The same word repeated makes a block that real text never makes.
What lorem ipsum hides
Placeholder text has limits. A design that looks right with lorem ipsum can break with the real words.
- The classic paragraph has no j, k, w, y or z. So the tail of the y and the width of the w never show up, and a font is not fully tested.
- Real text is rarely as even. Names, links, long words and numbers can push a line out of its box. A German or Finnish translation often has longer words than the English text.
- Screen readers read the Latin aloud as if it were real. Test with real text before you check a page for accessibility.
- It gets forgotten. Before a page goes live, search it for "lorem" and "ipsum". The find and replace tool does this in one step.
Filled tiles are in the classic lorem ipsum paragraph. Orange tiles are in your text but not in lorem ipsum: 5 letters, j k w y z.
Lorem ipsum in Word, code editors and HTML
| Where | Type | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Word | =lorem() | Three paragraphs of three lines each. Press Enter after the formula. |
| Microsoft Word | =lorem(5,2) | Five paragraphs. The second number is how many lines each one has. |
| Microsoft Word | =rand() | English sample text instead of Latin |
| Editors with Emmet | lorem lorem10 | About 30 words, or the number of words you put after it |
Word only does this when "Replace text as you type" is on in the AutoCorrect options, says Microsoft's help page (checked November 2026). For a web page, set the format above to HTML. You get each paragraph in its own <p> tag, or a list in <ul> and <li> tags, ready for the HTML editor. The Markdown format works in the Markdown editor.