The Hero(ine) Who Invented Lorem Ipsum May Never Be Known
February 5, 2023 2:00 PM Subscribe
I worked for a web design firm for several years, and we gave up on lorem ipsum. It's a handy shortcut for designers, but outside of that field a lot of people don't know what it's for, and just get confused.
Most of the time the clients would ask us to put 'real' text in. If they didn't have a website we could crib it from, we'd just make up some corporate word-salad. There were still clients who came back with a list of copy changes for the placeholder text.
posted by pipeski at 3:06 PM on February 5, 2023 [20 favorites]
Most of the time the clients would ask us to put 'real' text in. If they didn't have a website we could crib it from, we'd just make up some corporate word-salad. There were still clients who came back with a list of copy changes for the placeholder text.
posted by pipeski at 3:06 PM on February 5, 2023 [20 favorites]
shit i heard they were using lorem ipsum thousands of years ago, they left it in for on like EVERYTHING
posted by entropone at 3:30 PM on February 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by entropone at 3:30 PM on February 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
We could replace it with "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" or "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Yeah, nah, Lorem ipsum will do.
posted by sjswitzer at 3:34 PM on February 5, 2023
posted by sjswitzer at 3:34 PM on February 5, 2023
It occurs to me that ChatGPT would work well for generating "real" text relevant to a client's needs. It doesn't matter if it's all argle-bargle. It will seem sensible, which is all the client wants.
posted by SPrintF at 3:41 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by SPrintF at 3:41 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Though a lot of people see it as a feature that if you read lorem ipsum, you'll realize this isn't the final text. While ChatGPT text would increase the risk that it never gets replaced.
posted by RobotHero at 4:00 PM on February 5, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by RobotHero at 4:00 PM on February 5, 2023 [20 favorites]
And then you've got something conflating Aldus Corporation with Aldus Manutius, or saying Spartans are seven feet tall, or whatever, buried in there somewhere.
posted by RobotHero at 4:02 PM on February 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by RobotHero at 4:02 PM on February 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I love this. The provenance of this incidental little piece of text can be traced to a line break in a first edition 1914 translation of Cicero.
posted by slogger at 4:35 PM on February 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by slogger at 4:35 PM on February 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
My new edition of Photoshop had started printing "Lorem Ipsum" when I tried to caption a figure and I was all "what the hell?". So, thank you for explaining it to me.
posted by acrasis at 4:59 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by acrasis at 4:59 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
I worked in and adjacent to computer typesetting for 20 years or so but I always just assumed that hyphenating across a page-break was a no-no. But apparently it's a thing! Seems bad, though. (FWIW, I never worked on anything hyphenation-related).
posted by sjswitzer at 5:05 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by sjswitzer at 5:05 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
acrasis: A lot of modern UIs will put greyed-out text like "Enter caption." That seems like a better plan than pre-populating with Lorem ipsum. But I have stories to tell about how hard it is to implement these practices across platforms. It becomes unmanageable sooner than you can imagine.
posted by sjswitzer at 5:09 PM on February 5, 2023
posted by sjswitzer at 5:09 PM on February 5, 2023
The next Lorem Ipsum is obviously a procedurally-generated font that looks like the desired language when you squint, but will give flesh to the abyss demon Lr'mpS'm when Hissh Holiness the Vee'pi of Marketing tries to pitch it to a big client.
posted by Riki tiki at 5:57 PM on February 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Riki tiki at 5:57 PM on February 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
It occurs to me that ChatGPT would work well for generating "real" text relevant to a client's needs.
No, there's an obvious problem with having dummy text that looks very much like actual text. Lorem Ipsum finds it way into the real world too often as is.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:55 PM on February 5, 2023 [9 favorites]
No, there's an obvious problem with having dummy text that looks very much like actual text. Lorem Ipsum finds it way into the real world too often as is.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:55 PM on February 5, 2023 [9 favorites]
Wow, I remember both Letraset and PageMaker, but I had no idea this is where it all started.
Using ChatGPT to create dummy text would often result in better copy than the 'real' text anyway ...
posted by dg at 8:00 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Using ChatGPT to create dummy text would often result in better copy than the 'real' text anyway ...
posted by dg at 8:00 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
No, there's an obvious problem with having dummy text that looks very much like actual text.
Place I worked our standard practice was to use a custom spot color named “Placeholder - Update Before Printing” for any placeholder copy, the idea being that it would throw an error when someone preflighted the file or tried to get it to rip. And yet lorem ipsum still made it to press occasionally.
posted by nathan_teske at 9:18 PM on February 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
Place I worked our standard practice was to use a custom spot color named “Placeholder - Update Before Printing” for any placeholder copy, the idea being that it would throw an error when someone preflighted the file or tried to get it to rip. And yet lorem ipsum still made it to press occasionally.
posted by nathan_teske at 9:18 PM on February 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
You can astonish your friends and baffle your enemies by typing
If you want a bunch of Lorem in Microsoft Word, you can type
posted by straight at 1:46 AM on February 6, 2023 [24 favorites]
=rand(5) on a line by itself in Microsoft Word, and this placeholder text will suddenly appear!
Video provides a powerful way to help you prove your point. When you click Online Video, you can paste in the embed code for the video you want to add. You can also type a keyword to search online for the video that best fits your document.The number in parentheses is the number of paragraphs you want (I think it repeats after 5).
To make your document look professionally produced, Word provides header, footer, cover page, and text box designs that complement each other. For example, you can add a matching cover page, header, and sidebar. Click Insert and then choose the elements you want from the different galleries.
Themes and styles also help keep your document coordinated. When you click Design and choose a new Theme, the pictures, charts, and SmartArt graphics change to match your new theme. When you apply styles, your headings change to match the new theme.
Save time in Word with new buttons that show up where you need them. To change the way a picture fits in your document, click it and a button for layout options appears next to it. When you work on a table, click where you want to add a row or a column, and then click the plus sign.
Reading is easier, too, in the new Reading view. You can collapse parts of the document and focus on the text you want. If you need to stop reading before you reach the end, Word remembers where you left off - even on another device.
If you want a bunch of Lorem in Microsoft Word, you can type
=lorem(x,y) to get x paragraphs of y sentences.posted by straight at 1:46 AM on February 6, 2023 [24 favorites]
straight, I did that fully expecting that it was some kind of joke and that I'd end up feeling like a fool. It works though, which might be the most interesting thing I see this week, and it's only Monday, which means it's all downhill from here.
posted by Ickster at 5:39 AM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Ickster at 5:39 AM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]
The first paragraph of the article jokes about the Christian Bale ‘incident’ which begs a reminder that Bale was not off set abusing a crew member, he was on camera, mid scene, having a quite justifiable dispute with the Director of Photography- who was actually behaving quite unprofessionally.
On with the article…
posted by rock swoon has no past at 6:30 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
On with the article…
posted by rock swoon has no past at 6:30 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
I worked as an advertising art director for 20 years. I don't think I ever encountered a client who didn't understand the concept of Lorum Ipsum. I agree with the comment above that the fact that it starts with "Lorum" is a quick cue to people that the copy is placeholder.
Being the advertising world, I would inevitably put a space or two somewhere in the word "consectetur" (cons ectet ur) because we almost never used words that long. Clients don't like or understand long words, long words aren't usually cool, and long words make line breaks look really bad. No hyphenation in blocks of ad copy.
Interesting article. I knew it was a botched translation of Cicero, but never knew how old the specific use of those words was. Thanks.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:29 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Being the advertising world, I would inevitably put a space or two somewhere in the word "consectetur" (cons ectet ur) because we almost never used words that long. Clients don't like or understand long words, long words aren't usually cool, and long words make line breaks look really bad. No hyphenation in blocks of ad copy.
Interesting article. I knew it was a botched translation of Cicero, but never knew how old the specific use of those words was. Thanks.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:29 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Place I worked our standard practice was to use a custom spot color named “Placeholder - Update Before Printing” for any placeholder copy, the idea being that it would throw an error when someone preflighted the file or tried to get it to rip.
Heh. The Designer doesn't preflight it, the prepress Tech sees it and "updates" the placeholder color to the specced color, and you've got fifty thousand copies of Lorem Ipsum.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:53 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Heh. The Designer doesn't preflight it, the prepress Tech sees it and "updates" the placeholder color to the specced color, and you've got fifty thousand copies of Lorem Ipsum.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:53 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Fun fact: In the Korean show, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, the main character has a rolling suitcase that we see at least twice. It's got a beautiful picture of a whale and under that, in a scripty text, it says "Lorem Ipsum". I can't find a screenshot, but it's there.
posted by hydra77 at 10:33 AM on February 6, 2023
posted by hydra77 at 10:33 AM on February 6, 2023
I chuckled a little bit at how back in the '60s they used Letraset to mock up flyers for punk bands.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:46 AM on February 6, 2023
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:46 AM on February 6, 2023
Though a lot of people see it as a feature that if you read lorem ipsum, you'll realize this isn't the final text.
Honestly, you’d be surprised. I’ve definitely had people who thought we were going to publish something in Latin.
posted by plonkee at 11:46 PM on February 7, 2023
Honestly, you’d be surprised. I’ve definitely had people who thought we were going to publish something in Latin.
posted by plonkee at 11:46 PM on February 7, 2023
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