Imagine randomly hitting the keys on your computer, creating nonsense words as you type. I like to imagine that is how Lorem Ipsum—the filler text that often comes standard with many digital publishing programs—started. However, it actually started with a printer from the 1500s who scrambled up one of Cicero’s works, which may be why it’s often mistaken for Latin.
To my surprise, though, Lorem Ipsum isn’t readable Latin. The text doesn’t mean anything at all. It does consist of some Latin words, but the words go through “Greeking,” a process that makes the text unreadable.
Lorem Ipsum is the dummy text of the design world. The purpose of it is to make it easier for designers to get an idea of how their work will look until they have the final text to insert. Another purpose of this filler text is to avoid any distractions that readable text could cause during the layout process.
It’s a shame I can’t write my college papers using Lorem Ipsum!
