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Lining vs oldstyle figures

posted on July 13, 2018

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You picked your perfect typeface and started using it in your design, but then discovered that the numbers look like this:

It’s not a mistake. It’s what we call “Oldstyle Figures.” The numbers are aligned to the baseline.

If your font has OpenType features, you can change it to “Lining Figures” and make the numbers look like this:

You can learn more about OpenType features in Typekit fonts here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/typekit/using/use-open-type-features.html

There is also a quick tutorial on how you can use different OpenType features in CSS: https://helpx.adobe.com/typekit/using/open-type-syntax.html#lnum

You can also change it in your Sketch design project when you select the text and then open View -> Show Fonts from the menu. In the popup, find Typography -> Number Case and change the option to Lining figures.

tags: typography

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