What is lorem ipsum, and when did publishers begin using it?

Past lorem ipsum served the same purpose for written content as stock photos do now. The original lorem ipsum used a section of a book called “De Finibus Bonorum et Dolorem,” written by the Ancient Roman author Cicero. Old-style printing presses required tedious hand-setting of each letter and punctuation mark. So instead, workers would create type specimen books using preset words and paragraphs from Cicero’s treatise to save time.