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Generally, lorem ipsum is best suited to keeping templates from looking bare or minimizing the distractions of draft copy.

So when is it okay to use lorem ipsum? First, lorem ipsum works well for staging. It’s like the props in a furniture store—filler text makes it look like someone is home. The same WordPress template might eventually be home to a fitness blog, a photography website, or the online journal of a cupcake fanatic. Lorem ipsum helps them imagine what the lived-in website might look like.

Second, use lorem ipsum if you think the placeholder text will be too distracting. For specific projects, collaboration between copywriters and designers may be best, however, like Karen McGrane said, draft copy has a way of turning any meeting about layout decisions into a discussion about word choice. So don’t be afraid to use lorem ipsum to keep everyone focused.

One word of caution: make sure your client knows that lorem ipsum is filler text. You don’t want them wondering why you filled their website with a foreign language, and you certainly don’t want anyone prematurely publishing it.

Jorge Macedo

Jorge Macedo, Ph.D., P.E. is an Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Macedo received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Geoengineering in 2014 and 2017 from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of California Berkeley. Before joining UC Berkeley, Dr. Macedo practiced 6 years as a geotechnical engineer in a global consultant firm, working on a range of challenging geotechnical and geo-environmental multi-disciplinary projects for the infrastructure, mining, and oil & gas sectors. In particular, he worked on the major mining projects in Peru, Argentina, and Brazil from conception to detailed engineering design.

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