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Figuring It Out: OSF, LF, and TF Explained
Numerals (or figures) can take various forms. The figure style you choose ought to be appropriate to the project you are working on. Readability is key. But which style is best for which purpose? There are two main forms, oldstyle figures (OSF) and lining figures (LF). Each can come in tabular and proportional widths. See some examples below.
Full-featured text fonts include all four figure styles. Click the image above to see figures from
FF Scala Sans Pro, Adobe Caslon Pro and PMN Caecilia™ Std.
Oldstyle Figures
Oldstyle figures are Arabic numerals varying in height and position. Some sit on the baseline while others descend beneath the baseline. The 6 and 8 are commonly the tallest figures and the 3,4,5,7, and 9 descend below the baseline, while the 0, 1, and 2 are roughly the same height of the lowercase letters. This feature allows them to harmonize with other words on a page of text without becoming a distraction to the reader. So oldstyle figures are most appropriate in books or any running text. Oldstyle figures are also known as non-aligning figures, text figures or oldstyle numerals.
Lining Figures
Lining figures are derived from oldstyle figures. They are a modern style with all figures at a common size and position and even height as the uppercase letters (but sometimes smaller and lighter than the capitals). Today, most fonts use these as default. Lining figures sit on the baseline as opposed to oldstyle figures that appear at different heights and positions. They optically align along a height line and the baseline. The best applications are business reports, forms, tables or any place where alignment is crucial. Lining figures are also known as regular numerals or titling figures.
Tabular Figures
Tabular figures are mono-width, they align vertically and thus appear in documents that compare numerical data in columns. Each figure shares the same width and space on both sides.
Proportional Figures
Proportional figures are different in their total character width. They are spaced to fit together more like letters. For instance, the figure 1 is very narrow like the letter l and takes up less width than the number 6. Because their spacing appears more even, these figures are best in texts and headings where columnar alignment is not necessary.
Now that you know the differences between the two figures styles and their two widths, you know what to buy for your particular needs. Fortunately, some foundries (like FontFont) make it simple: every figure style that has been designed for a particular typeface is included in each purchasable package. OpenType, though, makes it even simpler. Most OpenType fonts include all available figure styles within a single font. So there’s no switching between fonts to get to the right figures. Read more about the conveniences of the format on our new OpenType page.
By Ivo Gabrowitsch | link | | 
April 4th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
When would tabular oldstyle figures be the right choice? At first sight, it seems they’re a redundant combination.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Great question, John. Tabular oldstyle is certainly the least common variant. I guess it would be appropriate if you wanted to create columnar data that was a little more ornamental or “old style” as it were. It’s more of an aesthetic choice in that instance.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I’ll ask the technical question - how do I make my application use each type of figures?
April 4th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Tabular oldstyle might work well in a restaurant or pub menu, for the prices. Or for tournament sports scoresheet columns — darts or golf league. Some situation where you want an old-timey or decorative feel but need numbers aligned in a grid.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Thanks for the great article! It never quite stuck with me why oldstyle figures vary in height and position, but reading that they “harmonize with other words on a page” has made everything clear.
April 5th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Thanks for the concise yet very informative post! This is one of the daily things we tend to overlook, thanks for explaining it :)
April 5th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Excellent article! I was wondering, could you perhaps recommend some inexpensive fonts for personal use? I already have the Adobe Type Classics for Learning, but I want more! ;)
April 5th, 2008 at 9:15 am
A couple of weeks ago I uncovered my old Macmillan log tables from the 70s and the question about “tabular oldstyle” made me go and fish them out of the recycling bin. As I suspected, the bodies of the tables are all in tabular oldstyle. I suppose this could have been deliberate, to give readers a visual cue as they wandered through the blocks of otherwise undistinguished figures. Looking at the dates for this book though, it’s a 1970 reprint of an 1908 edition so I wonder if oldstyle figures might have been the only option a hundred years?
April 5th, 2008 at 9:57 am
When I design a more traditional-looking publication and use oldstyle figures, I will use their proportional variant in the text, and tabular variant in the table of contents. If there are other tables, too, especially ones with lots of numbers, I will probably go tabular lining.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Meta Pro might have been a better choice for illustrating the differences here. I believe its tabular lining numerals have stylistic differences (like a foot on the “1″) to compensate for the uniform spacing.
April 5th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
i found this on delicious- thanks so much for the brief intro- i actually learned something great- and will chew on it for the next days…
April 9th, 2008 at 5:50 am
I’ve been told that lining numerals should also be used when the surrounding text is all in capitals. But I imagine that this applies only for “simple capitals”, and that for small-caps, which don’t align, old-style numerals are better. Any thoughts?
April 10th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Thank you all for your comments and personal additions to the article.
@ Cameron Bales: That depends on which application you’re using. If you’re in Adobe CS apps or Quark 7, it’s easy to access figure styles from OpenType fonts via the OpenType menu. In other applications, you’ll want to use PostScript or TrueType fonts, each one of which has a different figure style. That’s what the “TF” or “OSF” means in some font names.
@ Russel Gorton : That’s right. I for myself like to use TOSF usually for smaller listings with no more than ten rows. Finally all these tips in my article are not laws and the correct use depends on the designer and content.
@ Dan Villiom Podlaski Christiansen: The Adobe Fonts definitely are a good start. You can see our personal recommendations in the Staff Picks list. You will also find some very good hand-picked OpenType fonts on our new OpenType page.
@ Amar: I totally agree. You also should use lining figures in an uppercase surrounding.
April 20th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
[…] wonder what form of numerals (or figures) is correct for the situation at hand? This great tip from FontShop explains it all. Extended typefaces will typically include both oldstyle and lining […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[…] light-hearted mood in keeping with the subject of the play, but I also needed a font that had oldstyle figures, elegant italics, and a full set of ligatures. Adobe Caslon fit the bill as a full-featured font […]
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
[…] has a nice little blog post on their blog The FontFeed about understanding when to use Oldstyle Figures, Lining Figures and […]