Insert Dummy Text in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

At some point in time, we all need dummy text to add quickly to our slides so that we can ascertain how a body of text looks or fits within an individual text box or placeholder. There is an undocumented feature in PowerPoint that enables you to add dummy text with just a few keystrokes!

Follow these steps to add dummy text within PowerPoint 2016:

1. Click anywhere within your text container to bring up the insertion point, as shown highlighted in red within 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 drop-down gallery. The Shapes drop-down gallery is available from several Ribbon tabs including the Home and Insert tabs.
2. 
   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 2016 for Windows tutorial.
2. Thereafter, type "=rand()" without the quotes as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, and press the Enter key.
3. 
   Figure 2: Key-combination to insert dummy text
4. As soon as you press the Enter key, you will see 3 paragraphs containing the text "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" repeated 5 times, as shown in Figure 3.
5. 
   Figure 3: Dummy text inserted in the selected text placeholder
6. 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 sub-title 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 
   Figure 4: Lorem ipsum text inserted in the selected text placeholder
10. 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.