- Law 23: Use proportional oldstyle figures in body text.
You may not be aware of this,
but some typefaces contain different types of figures
that have been designed for different uses.
Figures is just another word for numbers.
Proportional figures have been designed
to consume different amounts of space
based on the shape of each number.
In proportional figures, the number one
takes up less space than the number eight.
Proportional figures work well within lines
of mixed-case text, like body text.
Another type of figures are tabular figures.
Tabular figures are numbers that have been created
to take up the same amount of horizontal and vertical space.
A number one takes up exactly the same amount of space
as a number eight, and every other number.
Because of this, tabular figures are great
for creating tables of text
because they stay aligned with each other.
Tabular figures are the numbers that you get automatically
when you start typing numbers in a document.
Within each of these divisions,
there are two more types of figures,
oldstyle figures and lining figures.
Oldstyle figures have varying shapes
and positions for each number.
Some of these numbers even have ascenders
and some have descenders.
Lining figures all sit on the same baseline,
and all lining figures have the same height,
which is usually equal to the height of a capital letter.
This all may be a little confusing.
Let's look at some examples to try and clear this up.
Tabular lining figures should be used
in tables of data because the numbers
will automatically align both vertically and horizontally.
But tabular lining figures should not be used
in strings of text, like body text.
They do not integrate well visually.
Tabular oldstyle figures are numbers that have fixed widths,
but they have the varying heights of oldstyle figures.
Now, tabular oldstyle figures are best used
when you're dealing with tabular data
that could use a little sprucing up,
or would benefit from being a little more fancy-looking.
Examples would include things like,
if you're making table of contents,
if you're creating lists of phone numbers
on a business card or maybe letterhead.
But tabular oldstyle figures should not be used
in strings of text, like body text.
They don't integrate well visually.
Proportional lining figures should be used for numbers
that appear in strings of uppercase text,
like headlines, because the proportional spacing
helps them visually integrate with the text
and their height is usually just about even
with the uppercase letters.
Proportional lining figures should not be used
in blocks of mixed-case text, like body text.
They're too tall.
And these proportional lining figures
tend to overwhelm the lowercase letters
that you see in body text.
The last type of figures that we're going to talk about
are proportional oldstyle figures.
These are the figures that should be used
in blocks of mixed-case text, like body text.
Because of their size and varying heights,
they integrate really well with surrounding
lowercase letters and they don't call too much attention
to themselves, becoming a distraction.
All of these special figures can be found
in what are called open type typefaces.
But you cannot access these figures
using just your keyboard.
Accessing these special figures can be done
in a couple different ways,
depending on the software you're using.
If you're a web designer,
you can use the font variant tag in your CSS
to access these different types of figures.
You need to be aware that not all typefaces
are going to include these special figures.
The type designer, whoever designed the typeface,
had to have designed and included these figures
when they created the typeface.
You're also going to need to choose
an open type typeface in order to have access
to these figures.
If you know that you are going to be
creating a document that contains a lot of figures
or a lot of numbers, it's a great idea
to choose a typeface upfront that will include
these varied numerals.
Let's summarize.
Using the proper figures in your text
is a great way to take your documents
to the next level professionally.
Learn which types of figures should be used when,
and learn how to access these figures
in the software that you're using.
Paying attention to details like this
will help make your text more readable,
and it also adds a certain level of sophistication
and elegance to your documents.
That's law 23.
Use proportional oldstyle figures in body text.