7 Dummy Text Generators: Which Is Your Favorite?
Part of designing is giving the client an idea of how their copy will work with the design. You don’t want to make it difficult for them to envision how the final website will look. Sure, you could get the content from them and plug it in, but then you are forcing them to divide their attention between the content and the design. Plus, they may not have all the content written yet.
Text generators allow you to create filler text — usually Latin — that typically makes no sense, but completes the look of the design. Most generators allow you to specify the number of paragraphs and then provide the dummy text which you can copy and paste into your mockup. There are many of these tools out there with varying levels of functionality, and I compiled a list of seven:
1. Lipsum.com
This generator is one of the most popular. It is very straightforward, providing Latin filler text by the number of paragraphs, words, bytes and even lists that you specify. They also have a page where you can download placeholder banner ads. And you can download an add-on to use right in Firefox.
This one allows you to select the number of paragraphs up to five and then generates non-Latin text. The dummy text provided makes just enough sense to give you a laugh.
3. Typetester
This text generator allows you to specify the number of words, characters and paragraphs, style the text, and then copy the CSS for your design. You can also use any font installed on your system, which makes this a great tool for print work, too.
This is a nice tool that allows you to select the amount of Latin text to generate per characters, words or paragraphs. It will produce up to 50 paragraphs of dummy text which is probably more than you’d ever need at one time.
With this one, you can select the amount of text, change the type of text (i.e. lorem ipsum, A-Z, actual copy), and create and copy the CSS. One really cool feature is the ability to drag and adjust the textarea to fit a specific column size.
6. Lorem Ipsum Generator 3
This one generates text in a number of languages and up to 100 paragraphs at a time. You can select to have it insert random question marks and exclamation points, too.
7. adhesiontextTM
This generator lets you choose the characters, language and case. You can even plug in your own characters and it will shuffle them around to create character-based dummy text. This flexibility makes adhesiontext a popular tool among font designers.
So, of these or one that isn’t listed here, which is your favorite?