Greeking

(1) The approximation of text characters on a screen display. Greeking is often used by word processors that support a preview function. In preview mode, the word processor attempts to show what a document will look like when printed. Frequently, however, the graphics display capabilities of the monitor are not sufficient to show text at a small size. To give a general idea of what the text will look like and how page layout will appear, the word processor uses graphics symbols to approximate the text. These symbols suggest greek letters, hence the term greeking. (2) The term greeking is also used to describe nonsense text inserted in a document to check a layout. This allows a layout artist to concentrate on the overall appearance of a page without worrying about the actual text that will be inserted later.