Dummy Text in PowerPoint 2010

Many PowerPoint designers, especially template designers need some dummy text to quickly add to their slides so that they can ascertain how some body of text looks or fits within a certain text box or placeholder.

Microsoft introduced an undocumented feature in PowerPoint 2010 that lets you achieve this with just a few keystrokes, and once you are used to these shortcuts, you'll learn to appreciate them so much!

1. Click anywhere on your text container, as shown in Figure 1 -- your container can be:
   • A text placeholder such as the title, the subtitle, or a content placeholder.
   • A text box such as one you place by accessing the Insert tab of the Ribbon, and choosing the Text Box option.
   • A shape you insert from the Shapes gallery -- the Shapes gallery is available from several Ribbon tabs including the Home and Insert tabs.
     
     
     Figure 1: A text placeholder with an insertion point
     
   Tip: If you want to learn more about the difference between a text placeholder and a text box, refer to our Text Placeholders vs. Text Boxes in PowerPoint 2010 tutorial.
   
   
   
2. Thereafter, type "=rand()" without the quotes as shown in Figure 2, and press the Enter key.
   
   Figure 2: Enter your secret keystroke
   
   As soon as you press the Enter key, you will see 3 paragraphs that contain 5 lines each of "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" text as shown in Figure 3.
   
   
   Figure 3: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” dummy text inserted in the selected text placeholder
   
   Whether you see paragraphs or bulleted text depends upon where you type in the keystroke:
   • Typing in a simple text placeholder or text box, or even the title or subtititle placeholders results in paragraphs -- these may be left or center aligned (or even right-aligned) based on the attributes of the text container within which you type the keystroke.
     
   • Typing in a content placeholder or bulleted text placeholder (or text box) results in bulleted paragraphs.
   • Typing in a shape results in center aligned paragraphs
   You can control the numbers of lines and paragraphs that show up by adding an argument to your keystroke as explained below:
   
   • =rand(4,2) will provide you with 4 paragraphs of 2 lines each of "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" text.
   • =rand(2,1) will provide you with 2 paragraphs of 1 line each of "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" text.
   You can also add dummy Latin text by typing the "=lorem()" keystroke without the quotes, and pressing the Enter key. This provides 3 paragraphs of fake Latin text (Lorem ipsum dolor...), as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Lorem ipsum text inserted in the selected text placeholder
   
   The =lorem() keystroke does allow arguments to choose from, but there are fewer options:
   • =lorem(1) gets you one paragraph/line of fake Latin text.
   • =lorem(2) gets you two paragraphs/lines of fake Latin text.
   • =lorem(3) gets you three paragraphs/lines of fake Latin text.
   Any other value such as =lorem(), =lorem(0), or even =lorem(8000) gets you three paragraphs/lines of fake Latin text.
   

See Also: Dummy Text in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac