It’s just a bunch of hocus pocus!
The most well-known dummy text is the ‘Lorem Ipsum’, which is said to have originated in the 16th century. Lorem Ipsum is composed in a pseudo-Latin language which more or less corresponds to ‘proper’ Latin. It contains a series of real Latin words. This ancient dummy text is also incomprehensible, but it imitates the rhythm of most European languages in Latin script. The advantage of its Latin origin and the relative meaninglessness of Lorum Ipsum is that the text does not attract attention to itself or distract the viewer’s attention from the layout.
One disadvantage of Lorum Ipsum is that in Latin certain letters appear more frequently than others – which creates a distinct visual impression. Moreover, in Latin only words at the beginning of sentences are capitalized; this means that Lorem Ipsum cannot accurately represent, for example, German, in which all nouns are capitalized. Thus, Lorem Ipsum has only limited suitability as a visual filler for German texts. If the fill text is intended to illustrate the characteristics of different typefaces, it sometimes makes sense to select texts containing the various letters and symbols specific to the output language.
There is now an abundance of readable dummy texts. These are usually used when a text is required purely to fill a space. These alternatives to the classic Lorem Ipsum texts are often amusing and tell short, funny or nonsensical stories.Dummy text is also used to demonstrate the appearance of different typefaces and layouts, and in general the content of dummy text is nonsensical. Due to its widespread use as filler text for layouts, non-readability is of great importance: human perception is tuned to recognize certain patterns and repetitions in texts.
If the distribution of letters and ‘words’ is random, the reader will not be distracted from making a neutral judgement on the visual impact and readability of the typefaces (typography), or the distribution of text on the page (layout or type area). For this reason, dummy text usually consists of a more or less random series of words or syllables. This prevents repetitive patterns from impairing the overall visual impression and facilitates the comparison of different typefaces.
Furthermore, it is advantageous when the dummy text is relatively realistic so that the layout impression of the final publication is not compromised.According to most sources, Lorum Ipsum can be traced back to a text composed by Cicero in 45 BC. Allegedly, a Latin scholar established the origin of the text by compiling all the instances of the unusual word ‘consectetur’ he could find and eventually recognized it as a passage from ‘De finibus bonorum et malorum’ (On the extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, a book that was very popular in the Middle Ages.
It seems that only fragments of the original text remain in the Lorem Ipsum texts used today. One may speculate that over the course of time certain letters were added or deleted at various positions within the text. This might also explain why one can now find slightly different versions. Due to the age of the Lorem Ipsum text there are no copyright issues to contend with.In the 1960s, the text suddenly became known beyond the professional circle of typesetters and layou Versions of the text were subsequently included in DTP programmes such as PageMaker etc.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. 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. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus.
Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. 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. 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