Insert Placeholder Text?

Sometimes you need to use placeholder text so you can get a sense of how your layout will look with text in it. The industry standard, and InDesign default, is good old lorem ipsum. To use placeholder text in a document, all you need to do is create a text frame and go to Type > Fill with Placeholder Text.

TIP: CHANGE THE DEFAULT PLACEHOLDER TEXT

Lorem ipsum is boring. But are we stuck with it? No! We can replace it with any text. There are websites where you can get alternative types of placeholder text, such as:

• http://www.cheeseipsum.co.uk
• https://baconipsum.com
• http://doctoripsum.com
• https://pirateipsum.me
• And my favorite: https://slipsum.com (Warning: This website does contain profanity . . . it wouldn’t be Sam L. Jackson if it didn’t! Remember, if you use the profanity version for fun, make sure you change it before doing a presentation!)

Paste the new text into a text editor—no formatting, just plain text—then save this file with the name “placeholder.txt.” Move this file into the InDesign application root folder. You won’t even need to restart InDesign; the next time you use Fill with Placeholder Text, you’ll see your new placeholder text instead of lorem ipsum.