Filler text (also placeholder text or dummy text) is text that shares some characteristics of a real Written language, but is random or otherwise generated. It may be used to display a Typeface, generate text for testing, or to Spoofing attack an E-mail filtering. The process of using filler text is sometimes called greeking, although the text itself may be nonsense, or largely Latin, as in Lorem ipsum.
Asdf
ASDF is the sequence of letters that appear on the first four keys on the
home row of a
QWERTY or
QWERTZ 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 the home row.
Etaoin shrdlu
"Etaoin shrdlu" is the approximate order of
letter frequency 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 operators.
Lorem ipsum
"
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." is one of the most common filler texts, popular with typesetters and graphic designers. It originates from the book
De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum and is part-
Latin and part-
gibberish.
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."
New Petitions and Building Code
Many
of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s utilized the "spinning newspaper" 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 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."
In the 2013 movie by Tommy Wirkola, a scene shows burning newspaper articles on Hansel and Gretel after they become famous for killing a witch. The articles show a plot relevant headline and further showcase an unknown type of filler text that reads as rather complex sentences which don't serve to make any sense. [Amazon Prime Video]
Character Generator Protocol
The Character Generator Protocol (CHARGEN) service is an Internet protocol intended for testing, debugging, and measurement purposes.
The user receives a stream of . Although the specific format of the output is not prescribed by , the recommended pattern (and a de facto standard) is shifted lines of 72 ASCII characters repeating.
!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\^_`abcdefgh
"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\^_`abcdefghi
-
$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\^_`abcdefghij
$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\^_`abcdefghijk
Unicode replacement character
The Unicode replacement character, also known as a tofu box, is a placeholder symbol used to replace missing text if a letter cannot be typed. For example, a missing "é" in "Café" would be written as "Caf�". It is often used when a character is not supported by any
typeface in the processing system of the device.
See also
-
Sample text in Microsoft Word
-
Postmodernism Generator
-
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
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Lorem ipsum
-
Hamburgevons
