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Ignacio5FF3
Participating Frequently
May 14, 2021
Answered

Fill with placeholder text

  • May 14, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 4077 views

Hi

What does placeholder text mean how does it work? I have been playing around with the command Fill with placeholder text in the type menu for sometime but I can´t see what it does.

 

Thank you so much for your answers.

regards 

Ignacio

 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Derek Cross

To create your own Placeholder text, you select some text, save it as a plain text (txt) file, name it placeholder.txt. Go to your Applications and open the Adobe InDesign folder and insert the text file in there. The next time you include Placeholder text in your InDesign document this replacement text will be used.in place of the text that comes with InDesign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regarding placeholder images, they aren't supplied, you make your own, perhaps using another, similar picture or a blank rectangle with "Pic to come" on it. I was just indicating how placeholders of all kinds can be useful when mocking up designs.

 

3 replies

Diane Burns
Diane Burns
Inspiring
May 14, 2021

To expand on Derek's and others' replied: This feature is used as "dummy" text in a layout design. Using this, you can show a layout design without having the actual text. It is sometimes called "lorem ipsum" or "greeked" text, which is kind of funny since it is actually nonsense Latin. 🙂 Here is more on it than you'd ever want to know: https://loremipsum.io

 

In addition to creating your own placeholder text, as Derek mentions, you can grab other "lorem ipsum" text that is humorous, at sites like this: https://www.maketecheasier.com/lorem-ipsum-generators/. Bacon ipsum is one of my personal favorites.

 

One other trick that can come in handy: if you hold down the Command/Ctrl key before choosing the Placeholder text command, you'll get a dialog that lets you choose the language of the Placeholder text. This can actually be useful, as the text generated brings in the characteristics of typesetting for languages like Japanese and Chinese or Hebrew and Arabic, which you normally can't access as part of the InDesign interface. You can create paragraph styles of these, and re-use throughout your document, without having the have the Asian or Middle Eastern version of InDesign.

    Derek Cross
    Community Expert
    Derek CrossCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 14, 2021

    Placeholder text is used where you haven't any text to use (at the moment) so you insert Placeholder text to represent the final text – until you get it – so you can judge how it might look and whether it needs to be changed for say a different font or different size, leading, colour or position etc.

    Type > Fill with Placeholder Text or, more efficiently, Control-click and from the drop-down menu select it.

    (You can also use photographs for Placeholder Images until you get the correct ones.)

     

    InDesign How-To: Customise Placeholder Text (Video Tutorial)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQqM7eXaKGo

     

      I
      Ignacio5FF3Author
      Participating Frequently
      May 14, 2021

      Hi Derek 

      Thank you so much for your thorough explanation and the great video, but there are a couple of things that are not clear to me.

      Where can I find placeholder images?

      And in the video the author shows a folder with some indesign documents such as adobe indesign CC 2019, configuration, documentation, Fonts, Quickstart, Plug ins, presets, Uninstall Adobe indesign  CC2019. and so on. The lady drags a placeholder.txt file from her desktop into this folder to solve the problem but I can´t find the folder in my PC containing similar or the same files as above so that I could drag a fabricated placeholder.text into the metioned folder. 

      Thank you for your great answers

       

      Derek Cross
      Community Expert
      Derek CrossCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      May 14, 2021

      To create your own Placeholder text, you select some text, save it as a plain text (txt) file, name it placeholder.txt. Go to your Applications and open the Adobe InDesign folder and insert the text file in there. The next time you include Placeholder text in your InDesign document this replacement text will be used.in place of the text that comes with InDesign.

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

      Regarding placeholder images, they aren't supplied, you make your own, perhaps using another, similar picture or a blank rectangle with "Pic to come" on it. I was just indicating how placeholders of all kinds can be useful when mocking up designs.

       

        Eric Dumas
        Community Expert
        Eric DumasCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        May 14, 2021

        Hi,

        placeholder text will fill your text frame with text.

        From the Info panel, you will be able to see how many words it takes to fill that space, so you cal tell a writer/author how many words you need. 

        You can create your own text file and use that as a placeholder if you don't like the standard one. Sometimes, if you work in a different language than English, it would help to have a placeholder in taht language.

        When working on newsletters, brochures, magazines with contributors (writers) other than just you, it is helpful.

        I
        Ignacio5FF3Author
        Participating Frequently
        May 14, 2021

        Hi Eric

        Thank you for your great answer Regards

         

         

         

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