Text figures

Old style figures or Minuskelziffern have - in contrast to majuscule or Lining - upper and lower lengths as lowercase as well as variable, the character shape adapted lining figures. Therefore, fit harmoniously into text. So the numbers 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 typically have descenders, while 6 and 8 usually have ascenders and 0, 1 and 2 are on the x- height, so take the size of lowercase letters.

Old style figures are from the 12th century, when the Arabic numerals began to replace Roman, used. Lining that are better suited due to their uniform width for tables where numerical values ​​should be right-aligned with each other and were first used there ( tabular figures ) have become customary in the amount of text since the 19th century. Old style figures but are used today in demanding brief.

In English - and sometimes also in the German area - old style figures are also referred to as Non -Aligning, Text or Figures Oldstyle Numerals.