How to use the lorem ipsum generator
Enter an amount, pick a unit, and the text appears straight away. Every change you make — style, count, format, sentence length — regenerates the output, and Regenerate (or Ctrl+Enter) gives you a fresh random version with the same settings. Your choices are saved on this device, so the next time you open the page it is set up exactly as you left it.
The five units behave differently. Paragraphs and sentences give you whole units, with paragraph length drawn from the sentences per paragraph range. Words stops at the exact word count and closes the final sentence with a full stop. Bytes cuts the text at exactly that many bytes, counting each paragraph break as two bytes, which is what you want when testing a database column, an SMS gateway or a field with a hard limit. List items produces short, heading-like lines, bulleted or numbered.
The counts under the output show words, characters, characters without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and the UTF-8 size of what you will copy. If you want to check text you have edited afterwards, paste it into the word counter or the character counter.
Classic Lorem, Cicero’s original and plain English
Classic Lorem ipsum is the familiar scrambled Latin. Sentences are built from the standard lorem vocabulary of about 200 words — dolor, consectetur, adipiscing, pellentesque and the rest — with commas placed where a real sentence would breathe, never next to the start or end. With the Start with “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…” option on, the first sentence is the traditional opening, which many designers expect to see.
Cicero’s original is the real Latin from De finibus bonorum et malorum (sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33, written in 45 BC). Lorem ipsum is a mangled extract of this passage — “Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet…” is where “dolor sit amet” comes from. This style keeps Cicero’s sentences and their order intact, so the length controls are switched off; paragraphs follow his two sections.
Plain English is bland, original filler such as “The layout shows a plain overview for anyone reading the page.” Use it when reviewers keep asking what the Latin means, when you are testing hyphenation or line breaking with English words, or when a client presentation needs text that reads naturally without saying anything.
Plain text, HTML and Markdown output
| Format | Paragraphs | Lists | Headings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain text | Blank line between | - item or 1. item | On their own line |
| HTML | <p> | <ul> or <ol> with <li> | <h2> |
| Markdown | Blank line between | - or 1. | ## |
In HTML mode, switch to Preview to see the markup rendered. The download button follows the format: plain text saves as .txt, Markdown as .md, and HTML as a complete, valid page with a UTF-8 charset and viewport tag, so you can open it straight in a browser. Headings can be added every one to five paragraphs in paragraph and sentence modes; they are left out in word and byte modes so those counts stay exact. In byte mode the target applies to the text itself, and the note under the counts tells you how many extra bytes the tags add.
Using placeholder text well
- Match the real content’s length. Headlines that are three words in the mock-up and twelve in production break layouts. Set the sentence-length range to match the copy you expect — Short for UI labels and cards, Long for articles and legal pages — and test the extremes.
- Test limits in bytes, not characters. Lorem ipsum is pure ASCII, so one character is one byte here. Real text is not: accented letters take two bytes in UTF-8, most emoji take four. Test a
VARCHARor API limit with the byte unit, then again with real multilingual text. - Never ship it. Search engines index placeholder text like any other copy, and a stray “Lorem ipsum” on a live page looks careless. Search your templates for
lorembefore launch. - Watch for accessibility checks. Screen readers will read Latin with an English voice. For usability testing with real participants, the plain-English style gives a far more realistic result.
Need to tidy text afterwards? The case converter turns headings into Title Case or sentence case in one click.
Frequently asked questions
What does lorem ipsum actually mean?
Nothing, on purpose. It is scrambled Latin taken from Cicero’s De finibus bonorum et malorum, written in 45 BC. “Lorem” is the tail end of “dolorem” (pain), and words were cut, shuffled and invented so the text looks like language without being readable. That is the point: readers judge the layout instead of the words.
Is lorem ipsum text free to use?
Yes. Cicero’s original is more than two thousand years old and in the public domain, and the scrambled lorem vocabulary is not owned by anyone. Everything this generator produces, including the plain-English filler, can be used in commercial designs, templates, prototypes and printed proofs without credit or payment.
How do I get exactly a certain number of characters or bytes?
Choose the Bytes unit and enter your limit. The output is cut at exactly that many bytes, with each paragraph break counted as two bytes. Because the text is plain ASCII, bytes and characters are the same here. In HTML or Markdown mode the target applies to the text, and the note shows how much the markup adds.
Why are the sentence length controls greyed out?
They are switched off for Cicero’s original, because that style reproduces his real sentences in their original order rather than generating random ones. Switch to Classic Lorem ipsum or Plain English and the words-per-sentence and sentences-per-paragraph ranges, and the Short, Medium, Long and Varied presets, work again.
Can I get lorem ipsum as HTML with headings and lists?
Yes. Choose HTML and every paragraph is wrapped in p tags. Tick Add headings to insert an h2 every one to five paragraphs, or choose the List items unit for a ul or ol list. Flip to Preview to see it rendered, then copy the source or download a complete HTML page.
Does the generator remember my settings?
Yes. The style, format, unit, amount for each unit, sentence-length ranges, heading and list options are saved in your browser’s local storage on this device, so the page opens the way you left it. Nothing is sent anywhere. Clearing your browser’s site data or using a private window resets it to the defaults.
Is there a limit on how much text I can generate?
The caps are 1,000 paragraphs, 10,000 sentences, 100,000 words, 1,000,000 bytes and 2,000 list items per run. That is far more than any layout needs, and generation is split into small chunks so the page stays responsive even at the maximum. If you type a larger number it is capped and a note says so.