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2 years ago निरंजन

What all are the contexts where it is okay to use OldStyle numerals? What has been the history of these numerals in and outside the TeX world?

Top Answer
2 years ago barbara beeton

OldStyle numerals are not really appropriate for math. Some reasons:

  1. some shapes are effectively indistinguishable from letters, e.g. OldStyle zero is very close to the shape of the letter lowercase “oh”;
  2. the variability of the height/depth of the OldStyle numerals could be confusing in an environment with mixed sub- and superscripts. That said, I think I’ve seen OldStyle numerals used in chemical formulas, where the vocabulary is both more limited and well defined.

OldStyle numerals have been used effectively in all-numeric tables, in particular ephemerides, although I think these are no longer common; a copy on paper would likely be dated before World War I. (Any numerals intended for use in tables must be uniform in width, so that columns will line up neatly. The numerals in Computer Modern are all of this design. A more comprehensive typeface can include four styles: tabular and text (variable width) “lining” digits, and tabular and text OldStyle digits.)

Acceptable (and accepted) uses in text are in dates and page numbers (both for the page itself and for cross references), where there is almost no possibility of ambiguity. This applies as well to numbered items: sectioning, list items, theorems, equation numbers. It’s wise to be very careful to mark even trivial math appropriately, to distinguish.

Although OldStyle numerals may be available in monospace (“typewriter”) fonts, that style, since it is already so constrained, doesn’t really lend itself to their use.

Donald Knuth wrote an article for TUGboat, Typesetting Concrete Mathematics, https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb10-1/tb23knut.pdf , that touches on the reasons for these distinctions.

2 years
निरंजन replying to Skillmon — Wednesday, 20th Dec 2023 15:47

I have spent almost a week or so just to make my homework assignments look nice. 😂 Apart from that, exactly what you describe happened to me too. Initially I didn’t like it much, but then I looked at it for a while and it started looking okay.

Skillmon replying to निरंजन — Wednesday, 20th Dec 2023 15:43

on first impression, it looks a bit odd to me, and many consecutive numbers hardly qualify as “text” 😃 But homework assignments seldomly look nice anyway. And the longer I look at it the more I think, it might be ok. So overall, not sure, better wait for Barbara.

11 hours
निरंजन — Wednesday, 20th Dec 2023 04:35

@Skillmon @barbara, sorry for pinging once more. I am confused about another incidence.

This is a screenshot from a stats assignment:

blob

Does it look too much or it is okay? I find it okay, but I am confused whether to have it or not have it. I am also slightly confused whether this qualifies as math or text.

12 days
निरंजन replying to Skillmon — Friday, 8th Dec 2023 03:49

Hmm, I agree. I will keep it like this only then. Thanks for your feedback.

8 hours
Skillmon replying to निरंजन — Thursday, 7th Dec 2023 19:51

Just ask yourself: Would you be happy if your code editor of choice looked that way? A MonoSpaced font should as utmost priority have completely unambiguous glyphs. That’s why we use slashed or dotted zeros there. I’d not like to code in this font setting, and hence I find it odd for verbatim code (output).

Skillmon replying to निरंजन — Thursday, 7th Dec 2023 19:46

No, this would look odd in monospaced environment.

3 hours
निरंजन replying to barbara beeton — Thursday, 7th Dec 2023 16:31

Thanks, I also had found 1Q and 3Q odd. About the extra space, this actually is an output from the R program. I have pasted it verbatim and used it with NewCMMono10-Book.otf. A denser version of the fork of Latin Modern. Without adding the space character, if there was a way to add some space, I can try that. Maybe increasing the width of the space character?

32 minutes
barbara beeton — Thursday, 7th Dec 2023 15:59

Comments on example with OldStyle numerals in monospace:

  1. numeric values with decimal points look okay and are understandable.
  2. single digits are confusing, especially the “0” following “Signif, codes”
  3. “1Q” and “3Q” look a bit out of place, although understandable.
  4. Not about numeral style, but another space between columns would help.

I hope these comments are helpful.

3 hours
निरंजन replying to Skillmon — Thursday, 7th Dec 2023 13:14

Ahh, okay. I tried that in monospaced font and this is what I got:

blob

(@barbara, you can also comment on how do you think this looks)

निरंजन — Thursday, 7th Dec 2023 13:12

@barbara, re: your answer, Thanks for a detailed answer. I will keep all of this in mind and proceed.

18 hours
Skillmon — Wednesday, 6th Dec 2023 19:05

Oldstyle numerics are usable in text and tables. They give a more balanced look than the usual tall numbers. I’m no mathematician either, but for maths they are at least uncommon. In monospaced fonts it’s a matter of taste, imho, but even though some of my documentations use them, I always find them a bit weird looking in code…

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