Typophile

node 6279

unknown

Dear Typophiles;

I'm producing a small booklet with text samples and it'll be printed in Swedish and English.
I have, however, no clue what kind of text to use in the english version. I don't want to use Lorem Ipsum, and the quick brown fox... is a bit too short.
What would you choose, which are the standard sample texts in english?

Regards,


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unknown

Fredrik, I never use Lorem ipsum, it has too many characters that aren't used in common english language. What I use for my comps is a part of a chapter of Alice in Wonderland. Mad tea party. I would advise you to investigate snippets from stories that might be in the public domain.

unknown

Great!

Thanks,

�

unknown

How about if you use the text of any of "Dubya's" speeches. They CERTAINLY qualify as Dummy text :-)

unknown

I usually try to grab interesting passages of text from the Project Gutenburg archive, possible even something thematically relevant to the project I'm working on. It's absolutely one of the best places to find public domain texts.

unknown

I've heard it said that Lorem ipsum is used because it tends to make text look good. The theory being that the letterforms evolved for letter frequencies characteristic of Latin. If so, it might have value for presentation.

Since your purpose is publication, however, I think you should look for a passage that suits your fancy in some classic public domain text, a chidren's book or a classic of travel writing, for example. Take it as an opportunity to put some of your own personality into the project.

unknown

Tom, Latin text has way to many x's, u's and other non common characters, and not enough e's so the color isn't accurate for common english text. I love Grants suggestion, but Cris has a point.

unknown

Bartleby.com is another source of public domain texts that might work as dummy copy.

unknown

>the color isn't accurate for common English text

I know -- that was my point, actually. The idea of using Lorem ipsum is that it might make the presentation look better than the reality. Or so I've heard said.

But that's not an idea I like. Personally I use my own dummy nonsense text or else some literary text.

unknown

Because John Steinbeck�s Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday are two of my favourite books, and parts of this poem appear in those books, I�ve used stanzas from Black Marigolds to represent text with good results.

cheers,
Dana

unknown

Tiffany, I checked your links and they are so bookmarked!

Excellent!

�

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