Beyond Lorem Ipsum

by Margaret Penney | October 13, 2016

Lorem Ipsum text is an important ingredient in many a designer project since it serves as a stand-in for content when there is none. Lorem Ipsum is the original filler text and is typically a scrambled section of De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, a 1st-century BC Latin text by Cicero. The best thing about Lorem Ipsum text is probably that it cannot be confused with actual text because, well, it’s in Latin and it reads quite strangely. For clients new to design, it can also be a curiosity, and if you’re lucky it may distract them from finding any issue with your design.

Over the past few years, like many things on the web, Lorem Ipsum websites have multipled—there are quite a few text generators out there that provide Lorem Ipsum and filler text at the click of a button. Sites that have new and creative filler text generators with passages from movies, television shows, and literature—outlined here are some of the best of the best.

Lorem Ipsum

If you type the phrase “Lorem Ipsum” in Google this will be the first website you’ll find for Lorem Ipsum text. This website has been online for as long as I can remember, circa 1999, and is a solid lorem ipsum text generator.

The Blind Text Generator

Another good resource is the Blind Text Generator since it gives you more options and some quite literary. You can create filler text by Werther and Kafka, and filler text in other languages than English. The European Lingues and English European Linges both truly resemble actual French and English, however, they are not, so this is a very useful option if you want your layouts to appear to have actual content. You can also choose a specific word count that is generated which is also quite helpful.

Fillerati

Fillerati takes the literary to the next level and is in effect, the literati of text generators. You can choose not only the author but the book as well from which the text is generated. So, for Edgar Rice Burroughs you can choose between text from A Princess of Mars or At the Earth’s Core plus it even tells you what chapter the text is from. The website virtually functions as an impromptu English class. It also has a really nice interface where you can choose a range of type styles and how many paragraphs of text to generate.

Fillerama

Fillerama is an incredibly useful filler text generator because it provides filler text in HTML and Markdown as well, making it an indispensable tool for web designers in addition to graphic designers. You can also style the text on the fly using headers, lists and inline styles to give the text a realistic look. The source material is a lot more contemporary than some of the other options out there as well—you can include passages from Arrested Development, Dexter, Futurama, The Simpsons, Dr. Who, and most importantly, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Margaret Penney is the Managing Editor of Notes on Design. Margaret is a teacher, designer, writer and new media artist and founder of Hello Creative Co.

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