On Sunday 18 February 2007 19:33, you wrote: > Any references to such rule? I think that his rule does not exist for > variable-width fonts like DejaVu Sans. Also IIRC this was allready > discussed in dejavu ML, and it is not going to change. Googling on "width numbers font design" gave me the selection below. Some of them are really worth reading :-) Note also that the microsoft reference extends the "same width" rule to other characters that are often used in combination with numbers, like mathematical or currency symbols. The reason I filed the BR is that currently the values are so close together that IMO it would take only very little effort make them "tabular". Personally I feel that having tabular numbers makes a _lot_ more sense in a general purpose font targeted at use on computers than having proportional numbers. Hope you'll reconsider the "wontfix" tag. Cheers, FJP P.S. My father worked in advertising (copywriter, but also did layout work), so I do have a bit of a background in this area. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/r_harvey/fonts.htm: Proportional fonts Each cell is just as wide as needed to form a well-rendered character. Some characters, like M and w, are quite wide, while others, like i and l, are very narrow. Usually, numbers in proportional fonts are all the same width. It is difficult to display columns of data using proportional fonts, because characters are not all the same width. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/figures.htm: Traditional non-digital typefaces offered proportional, tabular, old style and/or lining numerals. In tabular numerals the advance width and in proportional numerals any good model figure, such as the figure zero, is commonly referred to as the 'figure width' and it is used for the widths of some monetary symbols. The Dollar, Pound Sterling, Lira, Vietnamese Dong and Euro should all be on the figure width. The monetary signs Cent, Colon, Cruzeiro, French Franc, Naira, Peseta, Rupee, Won, and New Shekel may require a unique advance width. To be fair, the page above discusses two approaches to dealing with numbers (or figures): proportional or tabular. http://developer.apple.com/textfonts/Registry/#Type6 The Number Spacing feature type specifies a choice for the appearance of digits. It is an exclusive feature type. Currently defined selectors for this feature are: Monospaced Numbers: Uniform width numbers, useful for displaying in columns. Sometimes known as "columnating" numbers. Proportional Numbers: Numbers whose widths vary. http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/23422.html: Line 'Em Up! There are still more variations. Traditionally, old-style figures have had varying widths, while modern figures have all had the same width. That's one reason modern figures are popular in our number-intensive society; if you type them in columns (think annual report), the numerals all line up. But there's no reason why old-style figures can't do this too; and modern figures, for that matter, don't necessarily have to be all the same width. (It's always a challenge to make the numeral 1 look the same width as the other numbers.) So some type designers now create "tabular old-style figures," which vary in height and shape but all have the same width, and "proportional lining figures," which are full-height but may vary a bit in width.
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