Text figures (also known asnon-lining,lowercase,old style,[1]ranging,hanging,medieval,billing,[2] orantique[3] figures or numerals) arenumerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the name. They are contrasted withlining figures (also calledtitling ormodern figures), which are the same height as upper-case letters.[4][5]Georgia is an example of a popular typeface that employs text figures by default.
In text figures, the shape and positioning of the numerals vary as those oflowercase letters do. In the most common scheme,0,1, and2 are ofx-height, having neither ascenders nor descenders;6 and8 have ascenders; and3,4,5,7, and9 have descenders. Other schemes exist; for example, thetypes cut by theDidot family ofpunchcutters andtypographers inFrance between the late 18th and early 19th centuries typically had an ascending3 and5, a form preserved in some later French typefaces. A few other typefaces used different arrangements, notably on4, which may have an ascender in addition or instead of a descender, as inTheano Didot. Sometimes the stress of the0 is made different from a lettero in some way, although many fonts do not do this.[6][7]
High-qualitytypesetting generally prefers text figures inbody text: they integrate better with lowercase letters andsmall capitals, unlike runs of lining figures. Lining figures are called for in all-capitals settings (hence the alternative nametitling figures), and may work better in tables andspreadsheets.
Although many conventional typefaces have both types of numerals in full, early digital fonts only had one or the other (with the exception of those used by professional printers). ModernOpenType fonts generally include both, and being able to switch vialnum andonum feature tags.[8] The few common digital fonts that default to using text figures includeCandara,Constantia,Corbel,Hoefler Text,Georgia,Junicode, some variations ofGaramond (such as the open-sourceEB Garamond), andFF Scala.Palatino and its clone FPL Neu support both text and lining figures.[9][10][11]
As the alternate namemedieval numerals implies, text figures have been in use since theMiddle Ages, whenArabic numerals reached 12th century Europe, where they eventually supplantedRoman numerals.
Lining figures came out of the new middle-class phenomenon of shopkeepers’ hand-lettered signage. They were introduced to European typography in 1788, whenRichard Austin cut anew font for typefounder and publisherJohn Bell, which included three-quarter height lining figures. They were further developed by 19th-century type designers, and largely displaced text figures in some contexts, such asnewspaper andadvertising typography.[12] During the period of transition from text figures to lining, a justification for the old system was that the height differences helped distinguish similar numbers, while a justification for lining figures was that they were clearer (being larger) and that they looked better by giving all page numbers the same height.[6][12] Amusingly, as several later writers have noted, the printerThomas Curson Hansard in his landmark textbook on printingTypographia describes the new fashion as 'preposterous', but the book was printed using lining figures and themodern typefaces he also criticised throughout.[6][13]
While always popular withfine printers, text figures became rarer still with the advent ofphototypesetting and early digital technologies with limited character sets and no support for alternate characters.[14] Walter Tracy noted that they were avoided by phototypesetting manufacturers since (not being of even height) they could not be miniaturised to form fraction numerals, requiring an additional set of fraction characters.[6] They made a comeback with more advanced digital typesetting systems.[15]
Modern professional digital fonts are almost universally in one or another variant of theOpenType format and encode both text and lining figures as OpenType alternate characters. Text figures are not encoded separately inUnicode, because they are not considered separate characters from lining figures, only a different way of writing the same characters.[16]Adobe's early OpenType fonts usedPrivate Use Area for non-default sets of numerals, but the most recent ones only use OpenType features.[17]
Some variations of decimal digits are considered glyph variants and are not separately encoded. These include the old style variants of digits, as shown in Figure 22-7.
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