Lorem ipsum in LaTeX

A minimal example

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-3]
\end{document}

lipsum is included in TeX Live and MiKTeX, the two main TeX distributions, so you rarely need to install it yourself.

Choose paragraphs and sentences

The package holds 150 paragraphs of lorem ipsum. Its documentation gives this syntax:

• \lipsum typesets the default range, paragraphs 1 to 7.
• \lipsum[23] typesets paragraph 23 only.
• \lipsum[4-57] typesets paragraphs 4 to 57.
• \lipsum[3-9][4-8] takes paragraphs 3 to 9, splits them into sentences and typesets sentences 4 to 8. Sentence 1 is the first sentence of paragraph 3.
• \lipsum* is the starred version. It puts a different set of separators around the paragraphs or sentences.

To change the default range for the whole document, use \SetLipsumDefault{1-3} or the default-range option.

Other dummy texts in lipsum

lipsum ships with more than one text. Load another with the text option, for example \setlipsum{text=cicero}. The package documentation lists:

• lipsum: the standard lorem ipsum (the default).
• cicero: the Cicero passage that lorem ipsum was made from, in Latin.
• lipsum-cs: dummy text in Czech.

Loading a new text clears the previous one and switches the language to match.

Store the text in a macro

\unpacklipsum takes the same ranges as \lipsum, but saves the text in the \lipsumexp macro instead of typesetting it. That's useful when you need the text as an argument, for example inside a box or a table cell. Unlike \lipsum, it doesn't switch the language.

Hyphenation and language

\lipsum switches the active language to the dummy text's language while it typesets, so the right hyphenation patterns apply. If you load babel, include latin in its languages to get Latin hyphenation, for example \usepackage[latin, english]{babel}, the setup the package's own documentation uses.

Whole test documents with blindtext

The blindtext package goes further. It gives you \blindtext and \Blindtext for blind text, and \blinddocument and \Blinddocument for an entire random document with sections, lists and mathematics. It supports English, German and Latin. Its Latin option is a short lorem ipsum; CTAN points to lipsum for a fuller text.

Use blindtext when you're testing a new class or template and want to see headings, lists and maths together. Use lipsum when you only need body paragraphs.

Lorem ipsum outside LaTeX

For text you'll paste into another program, such as a slide, a web page or a design file, make it here. You can set an exact number of words or list items, and copy it as plain text or HTML.

If you paste this text into a .tex file instead of using lipsum, it works fine as plain paragraphs: LaTeX treats a blank line as a paragraph break. Leave HTML off, since LaTeX would print the tags.

Remove it before you submit

Search your .tex files for \lipsum, \blindtext and "lorem" before you submit a thesis or paper, and remove \usepackage{lipsum} if nothing uses it any more.