Lorem Ipsum: A Developer's Guide to Placeholder Text

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris.

Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Here are some key reasons:

Design Focus: Lorem ipsum allows designers to focus on visual elements without being distracted by meaningful content
Client Presentations: It helps clients visualize layouts before final copy is ready
Typography Testing: Perfect for testing font choices and readability

Here's a simple JavaScript function to generate lorem ipsum text:

function generateLoremIpsum(wordCount) {
  const words = ['lorem', 'ipsum', 'dolor', 'sit', 'amet', 'consectetur', 
                 'adipiscing', 'elit', 'sed', 'do', 'eiusmod'];

  let result = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < wordCount; i++) {
    result.push(words[Math.floor(Math.random() * words.length)]);
  }

  return result.join(' ');
}

For Python developers, here's a similar approach:

import random

def generate_lorem(word_count):
    words = ['lorem', 'ipsum', 'dolor', 'sit', 'amet', 
             'consectetur', 'adipiscing', 'elit']
    return ' '.join(random.choice(words) for _ in range(word_count))

print(generate_lorem(15))

You can style your placeholder text with custom CSS:

.lorem-text {
  font-family: 'Georgia', serif;
  font-size: 18px;
  line-height: 1.6;
  color: #333;
  max-width: 650px;
  margin: 0 auto;
}

.lorem-text::first-letter {
  font-size: 3em;
  float: left;

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <title>Lorem Ipsum Demo</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
</head>
<body>
  <article class="lorem-text">
    <h1>Lorem Ipsum Dolor</h1>
    <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</p>
  </article>

You can even generate lorem ipsum from the terminal:

# Using curl with a lorem ipsum API
curl https://loripsum.net/api/5/medium/plaintext

# Or create an alias
alias lorem="curl -s https://loripsum.net/api/3/short/plaintext"

Here's how you might insert lorem ipsum into a database:

INSERT INTO blog_posts (title, content, author_id, created_at)
VALUES (
  'Lorem Ipsum Dolor',
  'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.',
  1,
  NOW()
);

SELECT * FROM blog_posts WHERE title LIKE '%Lorem%';

Language	Difficulty	Use Case
JavaScript	Easy	Web development
Python	Easy	Data science, automation
SQL	Medium	Database management
Rust	Hard	Systems programming

You can use inline code like const lorem = "ipsum" or print("hello world") within your paragraphs. This is useful when referencing variable names like userName or function calls like getData().

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua."

— Marcus Tullius Cicero (sort of)

Vivamus magna justo, lacinia eget consectetur sed, convallis at tellus. Donec sollicitudin molestie malesuada:

First, understand your content needs
Then, apply appropriate placeholder text
Finally, replace with real content before launch

Pro tip: Never ship lorem ipsum to production! Always replace it with actual content.

Last updated: January 2026

Lorem Ipsum: A Developer's Guide to Placeholder Text

About the Author

Eugen Dumitru

Related Tags

Lorem Ipsum: A Developer's Guide to Placeholder Text

Introduction

Why We Use Lorem Ipsum

Basic Implementation

Python Alternative

Advanced CSS Styling

HTML Structure Example

Command Line Usage

SQL Example

Code Block Comparison

Inline Code Examples

Blockquote

Conclusion

Further Reading

About the Author

Eugen Dumitru

Related Tags