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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label osf</title>
</head><body>
<h3>Using &#8220;old-style&#8221; figures</h3>
<p/>These numbers are also called medieval or lowercase figures and their
use is mostly font-specific.  Terminology is confusing since the
lining figures (which are now the default) are a relatively recent
development (19th century) and before they arrived, oldstyle figures
were the norm, even when setting mathematics.  (An example is Thomas
Harriot&#8217;s <em>Artis Analyticae Praxis</em> published in 1631).  In a
typical old style 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 have descenders and 6 and 8 ascend
above the x-height; sometimes 2 will also ascend (this last seems to
be a variation associated with French typography).
<p/>LaTeX provides a command <code>\</code><code>oldstylenums{</code><em>digits</em><code>}</code>, which
by default uses an old-style set embedded in Knuth&#8217;s &#8216;math italic&#8217;
font.  The command isn&#8217;t sensitive to the font style of surrounding
text: the glyphs are only available to match the normal medium weight
Computer Modern Roman fonts.
<p/>The <i>textcomp</i> package changes <code>\</code><code>oldstylenums</code> to use the
glyphs in the Text Companion fonts (LaTeX TS1 encoding) when
in text mode, and also makes them available using the macros of the
form <code>\</code><code>text&#60;number&#62;oldstyle</code>, e.g., <code>\</code><code>textzerooldstyle</code>.
(Of course, not all font families can provide this facility.)
<p/>Some font packages (e.g., <i>mathpazo</i>) make old-style figures
available and provide explicit support for making them the default:
<code>\</code><code>usepackage[osf]{mathpazo}</code> selects a form where digits are
always old-style in text.  The <i>fontinst</i> package will
automatically generate &#8220;old-style versions&#8221; of commercial Adobe Type
1 font families for which &#8220;expert&#8221; sets are available.
<p/>It&#8217;s also possible to make virtual fonts, that offer old-style digits,
from existing font packages.  The <i>cmolddig</i> bundle provides
a such a virtual version of Knuth&#8217;s originals, and the <i>eco</i>
or <i>hfoldsty</i> bundles both provide versions of the EC
fonts.  The <i>lm</i> family offers old-style figures to OpenType
users (see below), but we have no stable mapping for <i>lm</i>
with old-style digits from the Adobe Type 1 versions of the fonts.
<p/>Originally, oldstyle figures were only to be found the expert sets of
commercial fonts, but now they are increasingly widely available.  An
example is Matthew Carter&#8217;s Georgia font, which has old-style figures
as its normal form (the font was created for inclusion with certain
Microsoft products and is intended for on-screen viewing).
<p/>OpenType fonts have a pair of axes for number variations &#8212;
proportional/tabular and lining/oldstyle selections are commonly
available.  &#8220;Full feature access&#8221; to OpenType fonts, making such
options available to the (La)TeX user, is already supported by
<a href="FAQ-xetex.html">XeTeX</a> using, for example, the <i>fontspec</i>
package.  Similar support is also in the works for
<a href="FAQ-luatex.html">LuaTeX</a>.
<dl>
<dt><tt><i>cmolddig fonts</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/cmolddig.zip">fonts/cmolddig</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/cmolddig/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>eco fonts</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/eco.zip">fonts/eco</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/eco/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>fontinst</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/utilities/fontinst.zip">fonts/utilities/fontinst</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/utilities/fontinst/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>fontspec.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/xetex/latex/fontspec.zip">macros/xetex/latex/fontspec</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/xetex/latex/fontspec/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>mathpazo fonts</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/mathpazo.zip">fonts/mathpazo</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/fonts/mathpazo/">browse the directory</a>)
</dl>
<p/>
<p/><p/><p/><p/><p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=osf">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=osf</a>
</body>