Lorem ipsum was conceived as filler text, formatted in a certain way to enable the presentation of graphic elements in documents, without the need for formal copy.
It is widely believed that the history of Lorem Ipsum originates with Cicero in the 1st Century BC and his text De Finibus bonorum et malorum. This philosophical work, also known as On the Ends of Good and Evil, was split into five books. The Lorem Ipsum we know today is derived from parts of the first book Liber Primus and its discussion on hedonism, the words of which had been altered, added and removed to make it nonsensical and improper Latin. It is not known exactly when the text gained its current traditional form. However references to the phrase "lorem ipsum" can be found in the 1914 Loeb Classical Library Edition of the De Finibus in sections 32 and 33.
It was in this edition of the De Finibus that H. Rackman translated the text. The following excerpt is taken from section 32:
"qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet consectetur adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem".
This is recognisable, in part, as today's standard Lorem Ipsum and was translated into:
"Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure".
Advancing to the 1960s, Lorem Ipsum was made popular by typeface manufacturer Letraset, who used it in their advertising campaigns. Letraset offered pages of Lorem Ipsum as rub down transfer sheets, which were widely used in the pre-computer era for layouts. These transfer pages, known as Letraset Body Type, were featured in the company's advertising and their popular catalogue.
Lorem Ipsum was reintroduced in the 1980s by the Aldus Corporation, a company that developed Desktop Publishing Software. Their most well known product PageMaker came with pre-installed graphics and word-processing templates containing a version of the faux latin language.
Have you ever seen the term Lorem Ipsum on a new website? Perhaps you have even tried entering it on Google Translate, but no sensible results came through. Most people who see it the first time think they are in the wrong address only to refresh and come back to the same page. But, what is this mysterious text that you see on pages?
What is Lorem Ipsum?
Simply put, loremipsum is dummy text that occupies the space where the real content should be. If you are designing an online business such as a blog and you do not have content already, you use a lorem ipsum generator to create placeholder or dummy text to show you how the business will look once you add the real content.
Lorem ipsum is common with typesetting and printing businesses. The text did not start with the age of digital businesses as it has been used since 1500s or even earlier. The first use must have been in the creation of a specimen book. The creators wanted to know how the book will look with text on and that was when lorem ipsum started finding its place in the printing, typesetting, and digital world.
The text has not changed much since the 1500s. It has held on to its place through the typewriter period and is now used on digital work. The release of Letraset sheets that contained lorem ipsum was the start of the popularity of lorem ipsum. Today, a lorem ipsum generator has made it easier to generate the text with much ease.