“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...” — everyone who has worked in design or front-end development has seen this phrase. Placeholder text lets you check a layout before the real content is ready.
The history of Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum is a distorted excerpt from Cicero’s work “On the Ends of Good and Evil” (45 BC). The original Latin text begins: “Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet...”
In the 16th century, typesetters used this text as filler when setting type specimens—long before digital design. In the 1960s, the company Letraset popularized Lorem Ipsum on transfer sheets for mockups. With the release of PageMaker in 1985, the text became the de facto standard in publishing.
The modern version of Lorem Ipsum differs slightly from the original and is deliberately meaningless, so readers focus on the visual appearance of the layout rather than the content.
Why designers use placeholder text
Focus on form, not content: real text draws attention to meaning and distracts from evaluating the layout, fonts, and proportions.
Even distribution: Lorem Ipsum contains letters of different widths, creating a realistic “gray value” for a block of text.
Neutrality: the client won’t start requesting edits to text that isn’t ready yet.
Speed: there’s no need to wait for a copywriter—the mockup can be shown right away.
Generation types
| Unit | Use |
|---|---|
| Words | Headings, buttons, labels |
| Sentences | Descriptions, captions, placeholders |
| Paragraphs | Articles, cards, text blocks |
Practical guidelines:
- Button: 1-3 words
- Card heading: 3-7 words
- Card description: 1-2 sentences (10-25 words)
- Article: 3-7 paragraphs
- Landing page section: 2-4 paragraphs
Alternatives to Lorem Ipsum
| Generator | Language | Feature |
|---|---|---|
| Lorem Ipsum | Latin | Classic, widely accepted |
| Hipster Ipsum | English | Trendy slang, amusing |
| Bacon Ipsum | English | About meat, unexpected |
| Veggie Ipsum | English | For vegetarians |
| Riba-tekst | Russian | Random Russian text |
| Slipsum | English | Movie quotes |
For Russian-language mockups, it’s especially important to use Russian placeholder text—the length of words and rhythm of sentences in Russian differ greatly from Latin.
When Lorem Ipsum gets in the way
Despite its convenience, placeholder text has limitations:
- Different word lengths: Russian words are longer on average than Latin words, so a layout with Lorem Ipsum may not reflect the real result
- Line breaks: Cyrillic text wraps according to different rules
- Perception of emptiness: product designers increasingly use real content from the earliest iterations to identify UX problems sooner
Practical tips
Don’t overuse Lorem Ipsum in client presentations: the client may not realize it’s placeholder text and ask you to “translate” it.
Use real data where possible: names, numbers, and dates are best taken from real examples—this helps uncover layout issues with long or short values.
Check edge cases: insert a very long word or very short text to make sure the layout doesn’t break.
Use Word Counter to count the words and characters in text. To work with Markdown formatting, use the Markdown editor.
Tool on reChecker
Lorem Ipsum Advanced on reChecker generates placeholder text in the required amount: choose a language and the number of paragraphs, sentences, or words, then copy the result.