Filler text (also placeholder text or dummy text) is text that shares some characteristics of a real
written text, but is random or otherwise generated. It may be used to display a
sample of fonts, generate text for testing, or to
spoof an
e-mail spam filter. The process of using filler text is sometimes called ''
greeking
Greeking is a style of displaying or rendering text or symbols, not always from the Greek alphabet. Greeking obscures portions of a work for the purpose of either emphasizing form over details or displaying placeholders for unavailable content. ...
,'' although the text itself may be nonsense, or largely
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, as in
Lorem ipsum.
Asdf
ASDF is the sequence of letters that appear on the first four keys on the
home row of a
QWERTY
QWERTY ( ) is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top letter row of the keyboard: . The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sh ...
or
QWERTZ keyboard. They are often used as a sample or test case or as random, meaningless nonsense. It is also a common learning tool for keyboard classes, since all four keys are located on the home row.
Etaoin shrdlu
"Etaoin shrdlu" is the approximate order of
frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio ...
of the twelve most commonly used letters in the English language, best known as a nonsense phrase that sometimes appeared in print in the days of "hot type" publishing due to a custom of
Linotype machine
The Linotype machine ( ) is a "line casting" machine used in printing which is manufactured and sold by the former Mergenthaler Linotype Company and related It was a hot metal typesetting system that cast lines of metal type for one-time use. Li ...
operators.
''Lorem ipsum''
"''Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet''..." is one of the most common filler texts, popular with typesetters and graphic designers. It originates from the book
''De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum'' and is part-
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
and part-
gibberish.
Now is the time for all good men
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" is a phrase first proposed as a
typing drill by instructor Charles E. Weller; its use is recounted in his book ''The Early History of the Typewriter'', p. 21 (1918).
Frank E. McGurrin, an expert on the early Remington typewriter, used it in demonstrating his touch typing abilities in January 1889. It has appeared in a number of typing books, often in the form "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."
''New Petitions'' and ''Building Code''
Many
B movie
A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...
s of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s utilized the "
spinning newspaper" effect to narrate important plot points that occurred offscreen. The effect necessitated the appearance of a realistic front page, which consisted of a main
headline
The headline is the text indicating the content or nature of the article below it, typically by providing a form of brief summary of its contents.
The large type ''front page headline'' did not come into use until the late 19th century when incre ...
relevant to the plot, and several smaller headlines used as filler. A large number of these spinning newspapers included stories titled "New Petitions Against Tax" and "Building Code Under Fire."
Character Generator Protocol
The Character Generator Protocol (CHARGEN) service is an Internet protocol intended for testing, debugging, and measurement purposes.
The user receives a stream of
byte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...
s. Although the specific format of the output is not prescribed by , the recommended pattern (and a
de facto standard) is shifted lines of 72
ASCII
ASCII ( ), an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for representing a particular set of 95 (English language focused) printable character, printable and 33 control character, control c ...
characters repeating.
!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ _`abcdefgh
"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ _`abcdefghi
#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ _`abcdefghij
$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ _`abcdefghijk
Unicode replacement character
The
Unicode replacement character, also known as a tofu box, is a placeholder symbol used to replace missing text if a letter cannot be typed. For example, a missing "é" in "Café" would be written as "Caf�". It is often used when a character is not supported by any
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
in the processing system of the device.
See also
*
Sample text in Microsoft Word
*
Postmodernism Generator
*
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is an English-language pangram a sentence (linguistics), sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet. The phrase is commonly used for Touch typing, touch-typing practice, testing typewrit ...
*
Lorem ipsum
*
Hamburgevons
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Filler Text
Typography