---
name: Tabular figures
slug: tabular-figures
category: typography
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Numerals drawn to identical widths so digits stack into columns, and
  so a changing number does not shift the text around it.
aliases:
  - name: tabular numbers
  - name: tabular-nums
    source: css
  - name: monospaced figures
  - name: tnum
    source: opentype
  - name: fixed-width numerals
tags:
  - fonts
  - tables
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - monospace
    - lining-figures
    - oldstyle-figures
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso:
    - count-up-animation
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: "Facts about figures: numeric styles with OpenType features"
    url: https://www.rwt.io/typography-tips/facts-about-figures-numeric-styles-with-opentype-features/
  - title: "OpenType at Work: Figure Styles"
    url: https://typenetwork.com/articles/opentype-at-work-figure-styles
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: numbers in a table, a timer, or a live counter
---

Most text faces draw a 1 narrower than a 0, because in a sentence a wide 1
leaves a hole. Those are proportional figures, and they are the right default
for running prose. Put the same numerals in a column and the flaw appears at
once: the hundreds place of one row sits over the tens place of the next, and
the column stops being readable as a column.

Tabular figures fix this by giving every digit the same advance width, usually
the width of the widest one. Rows of the same length then line up digit over
digit without any alignment work, and a decimal point falls where the eye
expects it. The second effect matters even outside tables: a number that is
being updated in place, a clock, a countdown, a live vote count, keeps a
constant width, so nothing beside it twitches every time a digit changes. That
is the same no-layout-shift argument this site's specimens are held to.

In CSS the switch is `font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums`, which maps to the
OpenType feature `tnum`; `proportional-nums` (`pnum`) asks for the other set.
Both need the font to carry the feature, and a face with only one figure set
will ignore the request rather than fake it, so it is worth checking the
typeface before relying on it. The neighbouring axis is figure height, where
lining figures all stand at cap height and oldstyle figures have ascenders and
descenders like lowercase letters. The two axes are independent: tabular
oldstyle figures exist and are lovely in a footnoted table.

The habit worth building is scope. Setting `tabular-nums` on the whole document
makes ordinary prose look faintly like a spreadsheet. Set it on tables, on
metrics, on timers, on anything with a number that changes, and leave the
paragraphs alone.