Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old-style, ranging, hanging, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals typeset with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the name. They are contrasted with lining or titling figures, which are all of consistent height.
Famous quotes containing the words text and/or figures:
“What our eyes behold may well be the text of life but one’s meditations on the text and the disclosures of these meditations are no less a part of the structure of reality.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Families suffered badly under industrialization, but they survived, and the lives of men, women, and children improved. Children, once marginal and exploited figures, have moved to a position of greater protection and respect,... The historic decline in the overall death rates for children is an astonishing social fact, notwithstanding the disgraceful infant mortality figures for the poor and minorities. Like the decline in death from childbirth for women, this is a stunning achievement.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)