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:
“If ever I should condescend to prose,
I’ll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those
That went before; in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I’ll call the work ‘Longinus o’er a Bottle,
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.’”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“She, while her lover pants upon her breast,
Can mark the figures on an Indian chest.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)