What exactly is Lorem Ipsum?

Lorem Ipsum is only dummy text used in the printing and typesetting industries. Since the 1500s, when an unknown printer scrambled a galley of type to construct a type specimen book, Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard sham text. It has not only lasted five centuries, but also the transition to electronic typesetting, remaining mostly intact. It gained popularity in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets including Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with the inclusion of Lorem Ipsum versions in desktop publishing software such as Aldus PageMaker.

Why do we employ it?

It is a well-known truth that a reader will be distracted by a page's legible content when looking at its layout. The point of employing Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal letter distribution, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here,' which makes it look like legible English. Many desktop publishing tools and online page editors now employ Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will reveal many new web pages. Various variants have emerged over time, sometimes by chance, sometimes by design (injected humour and the like).

Where does it originate?

Lorem Ipsum is not just random text, contrary to popular assumption. It has origins in 45 BC classical Latin literature, making it nearly 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, searched up one of the most difficult Latin terms, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage and located the undeniable source by going through the citations of the phrase in classical literature. Lorem Ipsum is derived from Cicero's "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil), written in 45 BC. This book is a popular treatise on the notion of ethics during the Renaissance.The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...", is taken from section 1.10.32.

For those who are interested, the standard piece of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced here. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of Cicero's "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" are also published in their precise original form, accompanied by English translations from H. Rackham's 1914 translation.