Font sample text for trying out a typeface or filling a layout. The pangrams hold every letter, the filler paragraphs say nothing in particular, and each tile copies exactly the text it shows.
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Which text for which job
To judge letter shapes, paste a pangram or the alphabet lines, where every letter turns up. To judge a block of text, paste a paragraph. The plain English filler reads like ordinary writing. Lorem ipsum looks like text and means nothing, so nobody stops to read it.
Real prose
Openings of old books holds the first lines of five novels first published before 1929, copied word for word from Project Gutenberg. The list under the tool names each author, title and year.
The shortest pangram here has 27 letters: Quick nymph bugs vex fjord waltz.
Paste the accented letters line to see whether a font goes beyond A to Z.
Questions and answers
What is the usual font sentence?
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, which holds all 26 letters in 35. Wikipedia's article on the phrase records its earliest known appearance in a newspaper of February 9, 1885, as a practice line for writing pupils.
What is blind text?
Filler: text that stands in a layout before the real words exist. German calls it Blindtext, which the German Wikipedia article defines as text used in designing a publication when the actual text is not yet there.
Is there sample text English readers can follow?
Yes, under Plain English filler: one sentence of 15 words, then paragraphs of 39, 75 and 142 words, all written for this page. They read as ordinary English and say nothing in particular.
Where does lorem ipsum come from?
Wikipedia's article describes it as a corrupted version of a work by the Roman writer Cicero from the 1st century BC, with words altered, added and removed until it means nothing. Its first two words are the end of dolorem ipsum, pain itself.
All 32 texts
Pangrams 14
Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxesPangram, 40 letters
Sixty zippers were quickly picked from the woven jute bagPangram, 48 letters
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vowPangram, 29 letters
Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vexPangram, 28 letters
We promptly judged antique ivory buckles for the next prizePangram, 50 letters
Alphabet and figures 7
À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü Ý ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô õ ö ø ù ú û ü ý ÿAccented lettersLetters with accents from the Latin-1 block, capitals first.
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy ZzCapital and small in pairsEach capital beside its small letter.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZCapitals, A to ZThe 26 capital letters, no spaces.
0123456789Figures, 0 to 9The ten digits.
Il1 O0 rn m 5S 2Z 8BLook-alikesShapes a font can make hard to tell apart: capital I, small l and one; O and zero; rn and m.
. , ; : ! ? ' " ( ) [ ] { } - _ / \ @ # $ % & * + = < >Punctuation and signsCommon marks, a space between each.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzSmall letters, a to zThe 26 small letters, no spaces.
Show all 32 texts (11 more)
Plain English filler 4
A layout needs words before the words are written. That is the whole job of a paragraph like this one: to stand in a column and behave like ordinary English while meaning nothing much. It has short words and long ones, a capital letter at the start of each sentence, a question now and then, and the usual scattering of commas. Does the text sit well beside the picture? Is the margin wide enough? Can a reader find the start of the next line without effort? Sample text lets someone answer those questions early. It also shows up awkward things, such as a heading that wraps onto three lines or a last line left with one lonely word. None of this depends on what the paragraph says, which is why it says so little. Replace it when the real text is ready.Long paragraph142 words of plain English, written for this page.
This paragraph says nothing in particular. It exists to fill a space, so that someone can judge the size of the type, the length of a line and the gap between lines before the real words arrive. Some sentences are short. Others run on a little longer, with a comma or two, because real writing does that as well. When the page looks right with this in place, it will probably look right with anything.Medium paragraph75 words of plain English, written for this page.
This sentence is here to show how a line of text looks in this font.One sentence15 words of plain English, written for this page.
This is sample text. It is here to show how a block of words looks on the page, not to be read. Swap it for the real words when they are ready, and the layout should hold its shape.Short paragraph39 words of plain English, written for this page.
Lorem ipsum 2
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.Lorem ipsum, first sentence19 words.
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 nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.Lorem ipsum, the usual paragraph69 words, as the Wikipedia article Lorem ipsum prints it.
Openings of old books 5
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.A Tale of Two Cities, openingCharles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859. 118 words.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.Moby-Dick, openingHerman Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851. 41 words.
The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance.Sense and Sensibility, openingJane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, 1811. 50 words.
One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it:—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.Through the Looking-Glass, openingLewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871. 21 words.
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.The War of the Worlds, openingH. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, 1898. 72 words.
How this list was compiled: Pangrams: long-known sentences, chosen for this page; each was checked on 2026-10-01 to hold all 26 letters, and its letters were counted. Specimen lines and the plain English filler: this site's own work, the word counts computed. Lorem ipsum: the common form as the Wikipedia article Lorem ipsum prints it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum, read 2026-10-01. Openings of old books: copied, word for word, from the Project Gutenberg plain text of each book (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701, /98, /12, /161 and /36, read 2026-10-01), with the underscores that mark italics there taken out; each book was first published before 1929, the year from the Wikipedia article on the book. Licence: own work for the selection, the specimen lines and the filler; the pangrams are traditional; the lorem ipsum passage and the five book openings are in the public domain