About the Lorem Ipsum Generator
A lorem ipsum generator gives you placeholder text that looks like Latin, with normal word lengths and sentence rhythm, so you can judge a layout before the real copy exists. Pick paragraphs, sentences or words, set the amount with a slider, and copy the result as plain text, HTML or JSON.
Designers fill mockups and wireframes with it. Front-end developers drop it into components to see how a card, a table cell or an email template copes with long text, and CMS builders use it to test a page template before editors write anything. Because nobody stops to read it, reviewers look at spacing and type instead of debating the wording.
- Under Generate, pick Paragraphs, Sentences or Words.
- Drag the slider to set how many. Paragraphs go up to 50, sentences to 100 and words to 1,000, and each choice keeps its own number when you switch between them.
- Leave Start with "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…" on for the familiar first line. Turn it off when you want text that doesn't open with the same words every time, for example in a row of cards.
- Choose an Output Format. Plain Text keeps a blank line between paragraphs, HTML wraps them in
<p>tags, and JSON gives an array you can paste into a fixture. With HTML and paragraphs or sentences, As a list (<ul><li>) makes each one a list item. - Click Generate New Text for different words. The word and character count sits above the result, and the Copy and Download buttons give you the text or a lorem-ipsum.txt, .html or .json file.
InputGenerate: Words
Number of words: 12
Start with "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…": onOutputLorem ipsum dolor sit amet voluptate lorem duis est id ut inWord mode returns a run of words with a capital first letter and no full stop. With the switch on, the first five words are always Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
InputGenerate: Sentences
Number of sentences: 3
Output Format: HTML
As a list: onOutput<ul>
<li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</li>
<li>Lorem duis est id ut in fugiat nisi laborum aliquip ea do ullamco.</li>
<li>Eiusmod ea amet ullamco excepteur ut ut dolor nisi.</li>
</ul>The count above the result says 30 words and 175 characters. It counts the text, not the HTML tags.
InputGenerate: Sentences
Number of sentences: 2
Start with "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…": off
Output Format: JSONOutput{
"sentences": [
"Lorem duis est id ut in fugiat nisi laborum aliquip ea do ullamco.",
"Eiusmod ea amet ullamco excepteur ut ut dolor nisi."
]
}Each example is what a freshly loaded page shows for those settings. Generate New Text gives different words.
Where lorem ipsum comes from
The text comes from De finibus bonorum et malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil), a book on ethics that Cicero wrote in 45 BC. The familiar passage is a cut-up version of sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33. "Lorem" is the second half of "dolorem", from the phrase "dolorem ipsum", meaning "pain itself".
In the original, Cicero's speaker argues that nobody loves pain for its own sake, and that people accept some pain only when it brings a greater pleasure. H. Rackham's English translation for the Loeb Classical Library came out in 1914. The placeholder version drops and changes words until the Latin no longer makes sense.
Richard McClintock, a Latin scholar at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, traced the source by searching classical texts for the rare word "consectetur". The text spread in the 1960s on Letraset dry-transfer sheets and later through desktop publishing software. You'll often read that printers used it in the 1500s, but there's no documented evidence for that.
How the text is built
The generator picks words at random from the 69 words of the classic passage. A sentence has 8 to 15 words and a paragraph 4 to 7 sentences, so one paragraph lands between 32 and 105 words. With the switch on, the first sentence is always Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
The first text after the page loads is the same every time for the same settings, which helps when you take screenshots for documentation or compare two designs. Generate New Text picks a random seed and gives a fresh set.
When placeholder text helps, and when it gets in the way
Placeholder text is good for testing the shape of a page: line length, font size, spacing, wrapping in a narrow column, and what a card or table cell does with too many words. It has critics too. Content-first designers say a layout built around fake text breaks once the real words arrive, and they're right about anything short and specific:
- Write real words for headings, buttons, menus and error messages. A real label is often much shorter or longer than any placeholder.
- Use real text in usability tests. People can't react to the meaning of Latin filler.
- Test other languages with real samples. German and Finnish run longer than English, Chinese and Japanese much shorter, Arabic and Hebrew read right to left, and Thai and Hindi need extra line height for marks above and below the letters.
- For form fields, use realistic test data instead: names, addresses and phone numbers from the Fake Data Generator.
- Keep lorem ipsum out of alt text and ARIA labels, even for a day. Screen readers read the Latin aloud to anyone testing the page.
- Search your code and CMS for
lorembefore a release. Placeholder text that goes live looks broken to visitors.
Generate lorem ipsum in code
You can also make placeholder text where you already work. Python's Faker library has fake.paragraph() too, but with the default en_US locale it uses English words instead of Latin.
import { faker } from "@faker-js/faker";
faker.lorem.paragraphs(3); // 3 paragraphs, separated by "\n"
faker.lorem.sentence();
faker.lorem.words(5);lorem 30 words
lorem100 100 words
p*4>lorem 4 paragraphs in <p> tags{% lorem 3 p %}What does lorem ipsum mean?
As placeholder text, nothing. It's a scrambled passage from Cicero, and the phrase it starts from, "dolorem ipsum", means "pain itself". The original passage says that nobody seeks pain for its own sake.
Is lorem ipsum real Latin?
Partly. Most of the words are real Latin, but they were cut, altered and shuffled, so the sentences don't mean anything. "Lorem" itself isn't a Latin word, just the end of "dolorem".
Why do designers use lorem ipsum instead of real text?
It looks like text, with realistic word lengths and spacing, but nobody reads it. Reviewers judge the layout and typography instead of the wording, and the page can be built before the copy is written.
How many words are in a paragraph of lorem ipsum?
Here, a paragraph has 4 to 7 sentences of 8 to 15 words, so 32 to 105 words. The count above the result shows the exact total. To measure your real text the same way, paste it into the Word Counter.
Can I get lorem ipsum as HTML or JSON?
Yes. Set Output Format to HTML for <p> tags, or turn on As a list for a <ul> with one <li> per paragraph or sentence. JSON gives an object like {"paragraphs": [...]}. For whole test records, the Sample JSON Generator has Word, Sentence and Paragraph field types.
Is it bad for SEO to publish a page with lorem ipsum?
Yes. A page of placeholder text gives searchers nothing, and visitors who land on it leave. Keep drafts out of search with a noindex tag or a login, and search for lorem before you publish.