How to Generate Random Text in Word

If you’re writing a Word document and need to insert placeholder text into a template or outline, there’s an easy way to generate sample text. Sure, you can type your own nonsense words to generate placeholder text, but Word actually has a built-in function to generate random text.

Generate Random Text with the Rand Formula

If you want to use random (yet coherent) text as filler content in your Word document, you can use the random content generation formula provided by Word.

The first method is to simply type in the following formula:

 =Rand()

This will automatically generate five paragraphs, each containing three sentences.

Word generates by filling in what’s between the parentheses. To do that, you’ll use =Rand(x,y), where x is the number of paragraphs and y is the number of sentences in each paragraph.

For example, if you want seven paragraphs that each contain four sentences, you’d use the following formula:

=Rand(7,4)

Generate Lorem Ipsum Text with the Lorem Formula

The same rules apply here as the previous method. Type in =Lorem() and then hit Enter, and Word will create five paragraphs of Lorem Ipsum text, each containing three sentences.

 

You can modify the amount of text the same way as with the rand formula, too. If you want four paragraphs that each contain nine sentences, you would type the following formula and then hit Enter:

=Lorem(4,9)

Generate “Quick Brown Fox” Text with the Old Rand Formula

Type in the following formula and hit Enter:

=rand.old()

The default for this method is three paragraphs that each contain three sentences.

As with the other methods, though, you can fill those parentheses to get more precision. For example, =rand.old(5,5) would generate five paragraphs that each repeat that sentence five times.