Lorem Ipsum Generator
A lorem ipsum generator for placeholder text by paragraph, sentence, word or exact character count, built on the Cicero passage the words were scrambled out of.
Lorem ipsum, seed 1
- Paragraph 1
- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Eos aut maiores quia sint expedita. Asperiores velit qui voluptatem, ea quia aspernatur qui eaque. Numquam dolores accusantium eum dolores placeat modi voluptatem, deserunt iusto eligendi eos. Nihil asperiores dolorem eligendi aspernatur, magnam consequatur dolor sit distinctio. Consectetur laudantium cupiditate aut dolorem doloribus et.
- Paragraph 2
- Laborum ut itaque, et recusandae repellendus hic dicta. Modi eveniet nulla tenetur rerum aut, laborum delectus enim consequatur odit nisi sunt. Deserunt voluptas et, quae omnis aut velit odit. Eius quia officia odio, magnam sunt quia eaque tempora laborum officia sunt voluptas vero. Dolor doloribus ut rerum sed consequuntur error perferendis quaerat, expedita aut et dolor.
- Paragraph 3
- Neque et sit commodi iusto numquam, ut labore molestiae debitis similique id qui. Ratione consectetur rerum voluptatibus aut, quaerat ab voluptatem. Ipsum voluptas est, ut voluptates vero eum dolorum enim. Optio maxime laudantium voluptatem similique culpa, error aliquam eum necessitatibus. Veniam quas unde itaque et praesentium, in explicabo ipsa. Facilis sed in modi iusto earum ipsa. Sed et doloremque eos suscipit quo.
- Words
- 181
- Characters Within the paragraphs; the breaks between them are not counted.
- 1,262 with spaces, 1,084 without
- Sentences
- 18
- Seed
- 1
How the Lorem Ipsum Generator works
Lorem ipsum is placeholder text: something that looks like running prose so a layout, a font or a template can be judged before the real words exist.
Where lorem ipsum comes from. It is Latin, damaged. The source is Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil), book 1, sections 32 and 33, written in 45 BC. In that passage Cicero's speaker argues the Epicurean case that nobody seeks pain for its own sake, and one line of it reads: "neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit, amet, consectetur, adipisci velit", which means roughly "nor is there anyone who loves or pursues pain itself because it is pain." Put that next to the familiar opening, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit," and the relationship is plain. "Lorem" is not a Latin word: it is the back half of "dolorem", pain, with its first syllable cut off. "Adipisci" has become "adipiscing", and "velit" has lost its first letter to become "elit".
The rest of the conventional first sentence drifts further. "Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua" echoes the next clause of the same passage, "sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem", with words truncated, merged and invented. That is the whole of the meaning: fragments of a sentence about pain, rearranged until they read as nothing in particular, which is exactly what filler is for.
When the scramble was made, and by whom, is not settled. Claims that it dates from a Renaissance printer's type specimen are repeated widely without a primary document to support them. What can be checked is the derivation itself: the Latin is public domain and anyone can lay the two texts side by side.
How this generator builds its text. Every word after the optional classic opening comes from sections 32 and 33 of the passage, taken from The Latin Library's text of book 1. The words are drawn in proportion to how often Cicero used them, so short connectives like "et", "qui" and "ut" turn up about as often as they do in the original, which keeps the rhythm closer to real prose than a list of long words would.
Why designers use it rather than real words. Readable placeholder text gets read. A reviewer shown a mock-up with plausible English in it starts editing the copy instead of judging the layout, and a draft headline has a way of shipping. Latin-looking text has roughly the word lengths and letter shapes of a European language without saying anything. The trade-off is that it is a poor stand-in for the real thing: translated copy often runs longer, real headlines vary in length, and a template that only ever saw lorem ipsum can break the day real copy arrives. Test with the real content, or with its realistic length, before launch.
One practical warning: placeholder text is easy to ship by accident. Search a site for "lorem" before it goes live.
Lorem Ipsum Generator FAQ
What does lorem ipsum mean?
Nothing, as written. It is a scrambled excerpt of Cicero's De finibus (45 BC), book 1, sections 32-33. The source line is "neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit, amet, consectetur, adipisci velit", about nobody loving pain for its own sake. "Lorem" is the end of "dolorem" (pain) with the start cut off.
Is the lorem ipsum text random?
Here it is generated from a seed: the same seed always gives the same text, so a page or a link reproduces it exactly. Change the seed to any other whole number for different text.
How many words are in a paragraph of lorem ipsum?
There is no standard. This generator makes paragraphs of four to seven sentences of six to fourteen words, so a paragraph usually lands somewhere around 40 to 80 words.
Can I get an exact character count?
Yes. Generated by characters, the text is exactly that long with spaces and punctuation counted, which is what a field limit or a meta description length usually means. The final word is trimmed or swapped so the text still ends on a period.
Is lorem ipsum copyrighted?
The source is Cicero, who wrote it more than two thousand years ago, so the Latin itself is in the public domain. The word list here is derived directly from that passage.