Saturday, July 7th, 2012

Random text in Word 2010

You may already know that typing =rand(1,2) on a new line in Word types one paragraph of two sentences in Word. The text is this random Word help style text:

“On the Insert tab, the galleries include items that are designed to coordinate with the overall look of your document. You can use these galleries to insert tables, headers, footers, lists, cover pages, and other document building blocks.”

But did you know there are other types of text you can type? Try =lorem(2,3)  and press enter to get two paragraphs of three sentences each of the Lorem ipsum dummy text.

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna.

Nunc viverra imperdiet enim. Fusce est. Vivamus a tellus.”

If you type =rand.old(2,4)  and press enter you get the older Word dummy text – the Quick Brown fox..

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

So now you have plenty of random text options – of them all the Lorem one is the most  handy for when you really need large portions of dummy text in a document.

Helen Bradley

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

Random text in Word 2007

In olders versions of Word, you could enter random text into a document using something like this typed in at the beginning of a new line and press Enter:

=rand(2,3)

This gives you 2 paragraphs each of 3 sentences of the text “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” It was not particularly original but it was handy for filler text.

In Word 2007, the news is better still. There are two options:

type

=rand(3)

To get three paragraphs of random text, this time it actaully makes sense and looks like real text.

The best news is, however, that Lorem ipsum can be entered automatically. Now I can remove the AutoText entry I always use to insert this Latin text and do it anywhere, anytime in Word 2007. Here’s what you type:

=lorem()

this gives you a little sampler of text. Type:

=lorem(10)

to get 10 paragraphs of it.

It’s easy to remember and easy to use and, well – thank you Microsoft, I’m impressed!

Helen Bradley