I was often using any of the available “lorem ipsum” generators on the web while testing different things in LaTeX until I discovered that the Latex distribution provides packages generating blind text, which is definitely more convenient. With just a few lines of code, these packages will generate paragraphes, even whole documents with sections, paragraphs of text, lists, etc.
The first package that I will introduce is the “blindtext” package. First the language option as well as the package have to be loaded. Make sure you get the order right, otherwise your text might appear in latin by default.
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{blindtext}
The language options english, (n)german and latin are available. French is also available, but in a preliminary version. Try it out yourself :-).
Now you are ready to create a paragraph or even a whole document with just one line of code.
For few/more paragraphs of normal text:
\blindtext \Blindtext
For a small/large document:
\blinddocument \Blinddocument
In an arbitrary number of repetitions, e.g.
\blindtext[5]
Furthermore,
\blindlist{env}[x]
creates a list with “x” being the number of items generated. The environment can be set to itemize, enumerate or description.
A more direct way to generate lists is by using the commands:
\blinditemize \blindenumerate \blinddescription
and their extended versions with capital letters are available. Similarly, the number of items is defined through the optional argument, e.g.
\blindenumerate[10]
If you want math within the text, use
\blindmathtrue \blindmathfalse
respectively.
It is also possible to generate text with math including formulas, using
\blindmathpaper
The “lipsum” package is a more basic package. It generates a certain number of the standard “lorem ipsum” text:
\usepackage{lipsum}
...
\lipsum
\lipsum[3-56]
By default, the package will either generate slightly more than a single page (fist line). Alternatively, it generates an arbitrary number of paragraphs (second line).
For more information, please refer to the package information of the blindtext as well as the lipsum packages.
Nice. Thanks!
I noticed that \blindmathtrue doesn’t seem to work with the standard lipsum text. Adding \usepackage[english]{babel} got me the inline math.
Right! Thanks for pointing it out, appreciate it. See example below. Best, Tom.
\documentclass[11pt]{article} \usepackage[english]{babel} \usepackage{blindtext} \begin{document} \blindtext \blindmathtrue \blindtext \blindmathfalse \blindtext \end{document}\usepackage[english]{babel}The generated blindtext is kind of funny, it says that all letters should occur in a blindtext, but it seems to me that at least letter z is missing….
Hi Lukas,
Where did you read that
\blindtextproduces all letters of the alphabet (pangram)? In English, the most frequently used pangram is: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.Cheers,
Tom
Hi Tom,
thanks for the introduction of \blindtext
With the
\blindtext i received the following text:
“Hello, here is some
text without a meaning. This text should show
what a printed text will look like at this place.
If you read this text, you will get no information.
Really? Is there no information? Is there
a difference between this text and some nonsense
like “Huardest gefburn”? Kjift – not at
all! A blind text like this gives you information
about the selected font, how the letters are written
and an impression of the look. This text
should contain all letters of the alphabet and
it should be written in of the original language.
There is no need for special content, but the
length of words should match the language.”
I guess its the same text that lukas received.
I don’t mind if there is no z, but is it possible to only receive half of it for the length?
Cheers,
Dorothee
P.S. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”?
Hi Dorothee,
Thanks for your comment. I wouldn’t know of a way to produce a shorter
blindtextusing theblindtextpackage. Perhaps, you can find a shorter paragraph in thelipsumpackage, which I introduce towards the end of the article. Alternatively, just define your own “blindtext” command:\newcommand\mytext{The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.}Hope this helps,
Tom
ps. This sentence contains all 26 letters of the alphabet.
I am beginner in Latex, I want to know how to create the \blindtext, where I will write these commands and text ? I have Texmaker and wrote a lot of things like pgfplotsits work good but I worte all the text in the same document and I think it wrong? can you help me
Hi Atyaf,
Are you looking for a minimal example? Below’s an example how to produce a paragraph of “blindtext”. For more information, please consider the blindtext package documentation.
Best,
Tom
\documentclass[11pt]{article} % Load the blindtext package \usepackage{blindtext} \begin{document} % Generate blindtext \blindtext \end{document}