Latin text for mockups

[isotope235]

Whats the story on using latin for temporary text in mockups, templates etc.? This seems to be more & more prevalent these days.

Does anyone know the history behind this practice, or is it just another fad gaining momentum?

[Mike Ossendrijver]

I think most people nowadays do it because it supposedly gives a classy feeling to documents ...

But in the middle ages and before that Latin was the "science language" just like English that is nowadays in Europe ...

[creole]

isotope...

People have been doing it for decades. The term is called "greeking", as in "It's all greek to me". It refers to using text to create "grey" areas which block out your page. This gives experienced designers keys to page layout, flow and balance.

People mainly use Latin text so as to avoid having the user focus on the words themselves as opposed to the design. When the user doesn't know what the words say, they are less likely to say "Hey, that word is misspelled" or "That's not my tagline" or "My products description is different from the one that you have mocked up there."

Get my drift?

[isotope235]

Originally posted by creole
isotope...

People mainly use Latin text so as to avoid having the user focus on the words themselves as opposed to the design. When the user doesn't know what the words say, they are less likely to say "Hey, that word is misspelled" or "That's not my tagline" or "My products description is different from the one that you have mocked up there."

Ahhh...the light bulb goes on...makes sense now.

Thanks Creole.

[michaelwheaton]

I had heard of a program that generates this text for you before, does anyone know the name of it? It would be a great tool instead of just using "This is where the text goes".

[creole]

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/demos/latin.asp

[Steelsun]

Using the latin/greek fillers (sometimes referred to as the "Ipsums") has been a standard practice for a long time. Even the old paper based desktop publishers and ad designers used it for mockups.

If you use Dreamweaver as your web design platform, you can get an extension that will place the latin garbage text in your page for you, you basically tell it how many words or characters to place in the text area.

There is also a DW extension (called "mumbojumbo") that will use corporate-techno-internet speak instead of latin for the same purpose. You can fill it with junk like the below stuff (here's a 1000 character sample):

through a top-down, proactive approach we can remain customer focused and goal-directed, innovate and be an inside-out organization which facilitates sticky web-readiness transforming turnkey eyeballs to brand 24/365 paradigms with benchmark turnkey channels implementing viral e-services and dot-com action-items while we take that action item off-line and raise a red flag and remember touch base as you think about the red tape outside of the box and seize B2B e-tailers and re-envisioneer innovative partnerships that evolve dot-com initiatives delivering synergistic earballs to incentivize B2B2C deliverables that leverage magnetic solutions to synergize clicks-and-mortar earballs while facilitating one-to-one action-items with revolutionary relationships that deliver viral markets and grow e-business supply-chains that expedite seamless relationships and transform back-end relationships withthrough a top-down, proactive approach we can remain customer focused and goal-directed, innovat


See, latin has modernized, and it's still non-sensical.

[creole]

steelsun...

can you post a link to that techo-babble extension please?

[isotope235]

Originally posted by Steelsun

through a top-down, proactive approach we can remain customer focused and goal-directed, innovate and be an inside-out organization which facilitates sticky web-readiness transforming turnkey eyeballs to brand 24/365 paradigms with benchmark turnkey channels implementing viral e-services and dot-com action-items while we take that action item off-line and raise a red flag and remember touch base as you think about the red tape outside of the box and seize B2B e-tailers and re-envisioneer innovative partnerships that evolve dot-com initiatives delivering synergistic earballs to incentivize B2B2C deliverables that leverage magnetic solutions to synergize clicks-and-mortar earballs while facilitating one-to-one action-items with revolutionary relationships that deliver viral markets and grow e-business supply-chains that expedite seamless relationships and transform back-end relationships withthrough a top-down, proactive approach we can remain customer focused and goal-directed, innovat

Believe it or not I've got a boss whose writing makes even less sense than this! He also prints every e-mail he recieves and files a hrad copy even if the e-mail contains nothing but an attachment (prints out a page w/ an icon on it).
TGIF.

[Steelsun]

Originally posted by creole
steelsun...

can you post a link to that techo-babble extension please?

Here's the link, but it might not work directly:
http://dynamic.macromedia.com/bin/MM...0&extOid=16753

How to get it if the link doesn't work:

goto www.macromedia.com
Click on "Resources", then "Macromedia Resources" (under the exchange area),
In the "search extensions" box, search for "mumbo" (without the quotes).

I believeyou have to register for exchange (it's free) to be able to download it though. It'll even work with DW 3.

[Polymath]

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit..." is a scrambled up version of Cicero.
It was first used in the 1500's and has survived for centuries...Funny co-incidence this thread because I was wondering about it a couple of weeks ago and searched around til I found this:
http://www.rzg.mpg.de/rzg/text/comp.fonts/cf_36.htm