Lorem ipsum generator

Generate lorem ipsum in one click

Pick an amount and a unit: the placeholder text appears right away, ready to copy in one click. The generator can create:

• paragraphs of 4 to 7 sentences, up to 100;
• sentences, up to 500, or words, up to 10,000;
• list items, to fill bullet points or a menu;
• an exact number of characters, from 10 to 50,000, to test a field with a limit.

By default, the text starts with the famous sentence “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.” Uncheck the box for a random start. Check “With HTML tags” to get paragraphs wrapped in <p> tags, or a <ul> list, ready to paste into your code. Each click on “Generate new text” gives you a new version.

What is lorem ipsum?

Lorem ipsum is placeholder text, also called dummy text or filler text. Designers, developers and publishers drop it into a layout while the real copy is still being written. It shows how the page, the font and the text blocks will look, without anyone getting distracted by what the words say.

It looks like Latin, with words of different lengths, commas and capital letters at the start of each sentence. The eye reads it as real text, but nobody tries to understand it. That is the point: “text text text” looks fake, and a real draft always ends up being read and edited.

Lorem ipsum full text to copy and paste

The most common version is a single paragraph of 69 words and 445 characters. It starts with “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” and ends with “id est laborum.” You can copy the whole paragraph from the “Full texts to copy” tab, along with the two passages by Cicero it comes from.

The generator doesn’t repeat that paragraph. It picks words at random from the 210 Latin words of the classic text and of Cicero’s passage, so every text is different.

What does lorem ipsum mean?

Nothing, on purpose. “Lorem” isn’t even a Latin word: it’s the end of dolorem (pain), cut in half. The next words are real Latin, but they were chopped and shuffled, so the sentences no longer make sense.

In English, Cicero’s original passage says roughly: “No one loves pain itself, seeks it out or wants to have it just because it is pain; but sometimes situations arise in which hard work and pain can bring great pleasure.” Here is how the start of lorem ipsum (in bold) lines up with Cicero’s Latin (in italics):

Is lorem ipsum real Latin? Where does it come from?

The words come from De finibus bonorum et malorum (“On the Ends of Good and Evil”), a treatise on ethics that Cicero wrote in 45 BC. The passage, in sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33, explains Epicurus’s views on pleasure and pain. So most words are Latin, but the scrambled text isn’t: no Latin scholar can read a correct sentence in it.

Lorem ipsum was most likely copied from the 1914 Loeb edition of the book. There, the word dolorem is split across two pages, and the next page of Latin starts with “lorem ipsum.” Richard McClintock, an American Latin scholar, traced the source and made it known in 1994.

You will often read that printers have used it since the 1500s, but there is no evidence for that. The earliest solid traces date from the 1960s, on Letraset dry-transfer sheets. The layout software PageMaker built it in in 1985, and it spread with desktop publishing and then the web.

How to insert lorem ipsum in Word, Google Docs and code

• Word: type =lorem() and press Enter. =lorem(3,5) gives 3 paragraphs of 5 sentences, and =rand() gives sample text in English.
• Google Docs: there is no built-in command. Copy the text from the generator.
• HTML: in VS Code, type lorem and press Tab to insert a paragraph (lorem20 gives 20 words). You can also check the HTML tags option in the generator.
• InDesign, Figma, Canva: in InDesign, use Type > Fill with Placeholder Text; in Figma or Canva, the easiest way is to paste the text from the generator.

Tips for using placeholder text

• Plan for the real length: a 3-word lorem ipsum headline tells you nothing about a real 12-word headline. Translated text, in French or Spanish for example, is often longer than the English original.
• Test limits with an exact character count: 160 for a text message, 280 for a post on X, or whatever your form allows.
• Replace it before you publish: a live page with lorem ipsum looks unfinished, Google may index it, and screen readers read it out loud.
• Search for “lorem” before launch: a search across the site or the code finds any forgotten block.

More free writing tools

• the word counter counts the words, characters and sentences of your real text;
• Tom, the rephrasing AI, helps you write the final copy;
• the invisible character tool copies a blank space or invisible text.