Content Replication – Transform Existing Text into Blind Text or Gibberish While Keeping Format

blindtextcontent-replicationlipsum

Suppose I have a document that took me a while to design and write. Now I want to show someone the overall format and length of the document but I don't want this person to read or even be distracted by the actual content. How can I change the text to remove content but keep more or less the same format?

One option would be to go through the whole document and replace invididual text chunks by carefully measured lipsums. But that it is lot of work.

Another option is to simply replace letter by letter in the content (not in the commands of course) with some (random?) rule to get the same word by word structure. (Suppose the possibility of decryption is not a pressing issue).

Can I achieve this transformation in the whole document? For example a package or a couple of commands at the start of the document.

Minimal example:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
This has a lot of content
\end{document}

how to produce a document as if the source was:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Blah bla a bli ba blihbla
\end{document}

Best Answer

Thanks to @ChristianHupfer (use other font, e.g. Cyrillic) and @JohnKormylo (suggesting "Redacted" font) and @jfbu (to give an example), I came up with this near perfect solution. I also learn that this is called "wireframing" in graphics design.

It handles 95% of the problem, the remaining bit is to redefine the includegraphics command and perhaps make the text non-copyable (if that is possible at all Is it possible to produce a PDF with un-copyable text?).

Instruction:

1) Install the Redacted font https://github.com/christiannaths/Redacted-Font

2) Use Lualatex and add this to your document

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[
    ExternalLocation={./},
    BoldFont={redacted-script-bold.ttf},
    ItalicFont={redacted-script-light.ttf},
    BoldItalicFont={redacted-script-bold.ttf} % or use pretty names if it works for you
]{redacted-script-regular.ttf} % Redacted Script
\setsansfont[ExternalLocation={./}]{redacted-script-regular.ttf} % Redacted
\usepackage{unicode-math}
\setmathfont[range=\mathup/{num}]{redacted-script-regular.ttf}
\setmathfont[range=\mathrm]{redacted-script-regular.ttf}
\setmathfont[range=\mathit]{redacted-script-light.ttf}
\setmathfont[range=\mathbf]{redacted-script-bold.ttf}

Some ideas also taken from: http://bryanwweber.com/writing/personal/2014/03/25/using-the-same-font-for-numbers-in-math-mode-in-latex/

NB: Unfortunately, I never managed to use a system font with space in its name to work with setmainfont (it can never find it), so I had to put the files in the same directory and call them by filename (let me know if you know how to do this right).

The results is very nice:

Version 2 (make italic distinguishable from upright letters)

Redacted font is too slanted and there is no "italic" variant, so I gave negative slant for regular variant and positive slant for italic. (also AutoFakeBold didn't work here).

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[
    ExternalLocation={./}, FakeSlant=-0.5, AutoFakeSlant=0.5,
    BoldFont={redacted-script-bold.ttf},
%    ItalicFont={redacted-script-light.ttf},
    BoldItalicFont={redacted-script-bold.ttf} % or use pretty names if it works for you
]{redacted-script-regular.ttf} % Redacted Script
\setsansfont[ExternalLocation={./}, FakeSlant=-0.5]{redacted-script-regular.ttf} % Redacted
\usepackage{unicode-math}
\setmathfont[range=\mathup/{num}]{redacted-script-regular.ttf}
\setmathfont[range=\mathrm]{redacted-script-regular.ttf}
\setmathfont[range=\mathit]{redacted-script-light.ttf}
\setmathfont[range=\mathbf]{redacted-script-bold.ttf}
\setmathfont[range={"2032}]{redacted-script-regular.ttf} %solve unicode-math "prime" bug: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/208988/prime-gives-undefined-control-sequence-in-xelatex-with-unicode-math
%

Related Solutions

Table of Contents – List of Equations Including Contents and Captions: A How-To Guide

Since you want a cheat sheet, I'd recommend the extract package. With a slightly different MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[
  active,
  header=false,
  copydocumentclass=true,
  generate=\jobname-Cheatsheet,
  extract-env={equation},
  extract-cmdline={synopsis},
  ]{extract} % http://ctan.org/pkg/extract
\begin{extract*}
% Items executed in both the main and extracted document
% (extract manual, section 5.1)
\usepackage{amsmath}
\end{extract*}
\begin{extract}
% Items executed only in extracted document
\def\synopsis#1{#1}
\end{extract}
\def\synopsis#1{}
\begin{document}
First Euler observed that
\synopsis{Euler's equation tying together the five fundamental constants of mathematics}%
\begin{equation}
1 + e^{i \Pi} = 0.
\end{equation}

Then, Gauss discovered the normal distribution:
\synopsis{Normal distribution}%
\begin{equation}
P(x) = \frac{1}{{\sigma \sqrt {2\pi } }}e^{{{ - \left( {x - \mu } \right)^2 } \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{ - \left( {x - \mu } \right)^2 } {2\sigma ^2 }}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {2\sigma ^2 }}}
\end{equation}

Finally, Einstein proclaimed: 
\synopsis{Equivalence of mass and energy}%
\begin{equation}
E = m C^2
\end{equation}
\end{document}

you get an original document of:

enter image description here

and an extracted document of:

\documentclass{article}
% Items executed in both the main and extracted document
% (extract manual, section 5.1)
\usepackage{amsmath}
% Items executed only in extracted document
\def\synopsis#1{#1}

\begin{document}

\synopsis{Euler's equation tying together the five fundamental constants of mathematics}%

\begin{equation}
1 + e^{i \Pi} = 0.
\end{equation}

\synopsis{Normal distribution}%

\begin{equation}
P(x) = \frac{1}{{\sigma \sqrt {2\pi } }}e^{{{ - \left( {x - \mu } \right)^2 } \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{ - \left( {x - \mu } \right)^2 } {2\sigma ^2 }}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {2\sigma ^2 }}}
\end{equation}

\synopsis{Equivalence of mass and energy}%

\begin{equation}
E = m C^2
\end{equation}

\end{document}

and:

enter image description here

This also works with your original \caption command.

[Tex/LaTex] Invisible blind text

You can use a minipage or a vbox inside the \phantom-macro to get the real size.

With the blindtext inside a minipage you may get problems at pagebreaks, but a \vbox should do the work.

Check this example:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\begin{document}

%Wrong
\fbox{
\phantom{\blindtext}
}

%Problems on page breaks
\fbox{
\phantom{\begin{minipage}{\textwidth}\blindtext\end{minipage}}
}

% The solution?
\fbox{%
\phantom{\vbox{\blindtext}}%
}

\fbox{\phantom{\vbox{\blindtext}}}

\end{document}

The \fboxes are added to make the space visible. They are not part of the solution.

Based on the comment, I expect this is a MWE for the problem:

\documentclass[twocolumn,english]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{blindtext}

\begin{document}

pre1: \blindtext

pre2: \blindtext

% \phantom{\blindtext}% One long line
\phantom{\vbox{\blindtext}}%correct paragraph, but in one block.

after \blindtext

\end{document}

Maybe there is another solution, but I don't expect that it can be solved with \phantom. See also Phantom and line break