Filler text (also placeholder text or dummy text) is text that shares some characteristics of a real
written text
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols.
Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...
, but is random or otherwise generated. It may be used to display a
sample of fonts, generate text for testing, or to
spoof
Spoof, spoofs, spoofer, or spoofing may refer to:
* Forgery of goods or documents
* Semen, in Australian slang
* Spoof (game), a guessing game
* Spoofing (finance), a disruptive algorithmic-trading tactic designed to manipulate markets
__NOTOC__ ...
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 branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, as in
Lorem ipsum
In publishing and graphic design, ''Lorem ipsum'' is a placeholder text commonly used to demonstrate the visual form of a document or a typeface without relying on meaningful content. ''Lorem ipsum'' may be used as a placeholder before final c ...
.
Asdf
ASDF is the sequence of letters that appear on the first four keys on the
home row
Touch typing (also called blind typing, or touch keyboarding) is a style of typing. Although the phrase refers to typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys—specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard thro ...
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 left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created f ...
or
QWERTZ
The QWERTZ or QWERTZU keyboard is a typewriter and keyboard layout widely used in Central Europe. The name comes from the first six letters at the top left of the keyboard: ( ).
Overview
The main difference between QWERTZ and QWERTY is tha ...
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 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. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...
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; 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 individual uses. Lin ...
operators.
Lorem ipsum
"Lorem ipsum..." is one of the most common filler texts, popular with typesetters and graphic designers. "
Li Europan lingues
''Li Europan lingues'' () is a quotation in Occidental (Interlingue), an international auxiliary language devised by Edgar von Wahl in
1922. It is used in some HTML templates as a fill-in or placeholder text.
Text
When used as placeholder tex ...
..." is another similar example.
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."
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
A coherent, short phrase that uses every letter of the English alphabet. See
pangram
A pangram or holoalphabetic sentence is a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding.
Origins
The ...
for more examples.
''New Petitions'' and ''Building Code''
Many
B movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
s of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s utilized the "
spinning newspaper
A spinning newspaper is a film transition device. At the conclusion of a scene or act, an image of a rapidly spinning newspaper is displayed. The newspaper stops spinning to reveal a headline that reflects what happened between the preceding and ...
" 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 or heading 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 centur ...
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." These phrases have become running jokes among B movie fans, and particularly fans of ''
Mystery Science Theater 3000
''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy film review television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. ...
''.
Character Generator Protocol
The Character Generator Protocol (CHARGEN) service is an Internet protocol intended for testing, debugging, and measurement purposes.
!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ _`abcdefgh
"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ _`abcdefghi
#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ _`abcdefghij
$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ _`abcdefghijk
Unicode replacement character
The
Unicode replacement character
Specials is a short Unicode block of characters allocated at the very end of the Basic Multilingual Plane, at U+FFF0–FFFF. Of these 16 code points, five have been assigned since Unicode 3.0:
*, marks start of annotated text
*, marks start ...
is a placeholder symbol used to replace missing text if a letter cannot be typed. For example, a missing "O" in "Hop" would be written as H�p, and a missing "E" in "Hello" would be written as H�llo.
See also
*
Sample text in Microsoft Word
*
Postmodernism Generator
The Postmodernism Generator is a computer program that automatically produces "close imitations" of postmodernist writing. It was written in 1996 by Andrew C. Bulhak of Monash University using the Dada Engine, a system for generating random tex ...
*
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 that contains all the letters of the alphabet. The phrase is commonly used for touch-typing practice, testing typewriters and computer keyboards, displ ...
*
Lorem ipsum
In publishing and graphic design, ''Lorem ipsum'' is a placeholder text commonly used to demonstrate the visual form of a document or a typeface without relying on meaningful content. ''Lorem ipsum'' may be used as a placeholder before final c ...
*
Hamburgevons
The word Hamburgefonts (or Hamburgefonstiv or Hamburgefons or Hamburgevons) is a short piece of meaningless filler text used for assessing the design and the appearance of a typeface. It contains all essential forms in a Latin alphabet, so that t ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Filler Text
Typography