For more than a few years I worked as a layout artist for a newspaper and magazine group. Lorem ipsum was my friend.
That’s the placeholder or filler text that’s used to create a page layout without using real text. Lorem ipsum typically is a Latin text that’s mostly nonsensical, but looks good in a dummy layout.
Some Mac Lorem Ipsum apps have other languages and phrase styles, but the intent and usage is still the same. Now there’s a 21st century version of Lorem Ipsum but without the Latin. It’s an utterly inexpensive Mac app called Wordum.
Typical Lorem Ipsum text needs to look authentic, but the visual focus is on the layout of a page, not the actual content.
Wordum brings a more realistic look to dummy text with real words, real phrases, but still without meaning.
The app resides in the Mac’s Menubar and controls are simple.
In the case of Wordum, the placeholder text simply looks more realistic because it’s actual words, actual sentences, merely devoid of meaning.
Click the Menubar icon and generate Wordum text. A few sentences, more sentences, a lot of words and sentences, or a custom amount. Preferences determine the custom text generation.
You shouldn’t expect much more for a 99-cent app, but the end result is a dummy page layout with more realistic looking text.
And that’s the problem.
The whole idea of a dummy layout is to display the layout, not bring focus to the content. In the case of Wordum, what you see in a dummy layout is more realistic, including a little extra visual focus on the content.
Who you calling a dummy (page layout)? LOL
There’s more to Wordum than meets the eye. The fact that text really looks like text makes it a more accurate and critical view of a dummy page layout. It’s well done and worth a buck. Needs more languages, though.