When attempting to design printed templates – say a book, or presentation, or web page, it is not uncommon for the reviewer to be distracted by the text and overlook the layout itself. Lorem ipsum is used as a placeholder as it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters which looks like readable English but is itself unreadable.
The invention of the moveable-type printing press sometime around 1450 ended the practice of hand-writing books. Up until that time, there were perhaps only a few thousand books in existence in all of Europe. While the first printed book (perhaps) was Gutenberg’s Bible in 1455, there were more than 9,000,000 books in existence by 1500. For the first 100 years, the process of producing books was more or less a free-for-all. After about 1550, the printing process became standardized for the most part.
In the earliest days, many if not most books were printed in Latin, the language of the educated at the time – undeniably the influence of the church of those days.
In order to appeal to customers, printers used a “dummy text” to illustrate different fonts for books. As Latin was the language of the day, the dummy text used was a fragment of Latin prose. This practice died away as printing became standardized and printing languages shifted from Latin to local dialects.
Time passes …
In the 1960s, an advertising company used Lorem ipsum as filler text for advertising blanks. This allowed typesetters to be able to produce mock-ups quickly by simply replacing the text on pre-formatted copy.
About 1980, when PageMaker software was developed for desktop publishing, Lorem ipsum was used as a placeholder for developing page layout. Microsoft Word adopted the practice and now its use has become wide-spread.
Thought to be random Latin words, an America professor of Latin in 1982 traced the text to a 45BC work by Cicero: De finibus bonorum et malorum (“On the Ends of Good and Evil”). Lorem ipsum is a corrupted version of Cicero’s treatise.
Written in 45BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum is a philosophical work consisting of five books in which he explores competing theories of ethics, a popular topic during the renaissance. Lorem Ipsum is derived from Book 1 in which Cicero presents the Epicurean philosophy that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the highest goods.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
“Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system. On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue.”
There’s more – much more … five books worth.
The books are available on-line (isn’t everything?) at https://www.loc.gov/item/unk82083889/
