---
name: Oldstyle figures
slug: oldstyle-figures
category: typography
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Numerals with varying heights, some rising and some dropping below
  the baseline, so numbers blend into lowercase running text.
aliases:
  - name: old style figures
  - name: text figures
  - name: lowercase numerals
  - name: hanging figures
  - name: onum
    source: opentype
tags:
  - fonts
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - tabular-figures
    - lining-figures
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: "OpenType at Work: Figure Styles (Type Network)"
    url: https://typenetwork.com/articles/opentype-at-work-figure-styles
  - title: Practical Typography (Matthew Butterick)
    url: https://practicaltypography.com/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: numbers inside a sentence, not in a table
---

A numeral set is a small alphabet, and like an alphabet it can be drawn tall or short.
The default in most fonts is the lining set: every digit the same height, aligned to the
capitals, drawn to sit beside `MMXXIV` without a step in the line. Oldstyle figures are
the other drawing. Their bodies sit at the [x-height](/x-height), a few of them rise to
the [ascender](/ascender), and the rest drop a tail below the baseline, so a number in
the middle of a sentence has the same rhythm of ups and downs as the words around it.
The usual pattern is 0, 1 and 2 at x-height, 6 and 8 rising, and 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9
hanging, though the exact set is the type designer's call.

The reason to reach for them is the same reason a paragraph does not shout. Lining
figures are drawn at the [cap height](/cap-height), so a date inside running lowercase
reads as five capital letters dropped into the sentence, and the eye stops at them. That
is a virtue in a price, a total, or an interface number that has to be found at a
glance, and a nuisance in a footnote, a citation, or an essay about the eighteen
nineties. The same instinct produces [small caps](/small-caps): capitals that have to
appear inside a sentence get redrawn to lowercase height so they stop interrupting it.

Keep it clear of [tabular figures](/tabular-figures), which answer a different question.
Tabular is about width: every numeral given the same advance so that columns of numbers
line up digit under digit, whatever the values are. Oldstyle is about height and shape:
numerals redrawn to the proportions of lowercase so a number stops standing out in a
paragraph. A face can offer either, both, or the two combined, which is why a good text
family ships four figure sets, and why "proportional oldstyle" for prose and "tabular
lining" for the accounts is a normal pair of choices rather than a contradiction.

In practice the switch is `font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums`, or the `onum` feature
underneath it, and it does nothing at all in a face that carries no oldstyle set. That
silence is the trap: the CSS is valid, the build is clean, and the numbers stay lining.
The specimen on this page is set in Vollkorn, where the arrangement runs the other way:
the oldstyle set is the default and `lnum` is the switch, which is normal in a book face
and worth knowing before you write `onum`, see nothing change, and conclude the feature
is missing. Both heights are ruled across the line there, because a claim about a height
is only readable against a line, and the number changes width as it changes drawing: a
real oldstyle set brings its own advances.