Oldstyle numbers with Charter font

Question

I'm using the Charter font using the following package:

\usepackage[charter]{mathdesign}

I want to have oldstyle (lowercase) numbers in conjunction with this package. I've seen this question but it refers to CM and palatino only. Any way of getting oldstyle numbering (throughout the document) with Charter font?

Does charter have oldstyle numbers? I don't see any given in the LaTeX font catalogue. — jon, Dec 15 '11 at 05:17
That's the question :) ... Do I simply give up on the font or the oldstyle figure or is there a way to have them both. — recluze, Dec 15 '11 at 05:33
There is no old-style numbers in Bitstream Charter fonts. You may temporarily change to another font for the numbers. — Leo Liu, Dec 15 '11 at 05:51
Leo Liu. That sounds like a plan but how do I change all numbers to another font? — recluze, Dec 15 '11 at 07:05
@recluze you can give a look at http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/7100/change-font-of-mathematics-numbers — Alain Matthes, Dec 15 '11 at 09:02
@recluze: No. I meant that you can just redefine \oldstylenums to change to a font you want. — Leo Liu, Dec 15 '11 at 14:38

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 15 '11 at 06:15

I think the answer is No. LaTeXdefines \oldstylenums

\def\oldstylenums#1{%
   \begingroup
    \spaceskip\fontdimen\tw@\font
    \usefont{OML}{\rmdefault}{\f@series}{it}%
    \mathgroup\symletters #1%
   \endgroup
}

When a font contains old style numbers, like fourier, you find in the package fourier.sty an option : oldstyle.

\DeclareOption{oldstyle}{\def\textfamilyextension{j}%
\def\mathfamilyextension{x}\poormanfalse}

with

\newcommand*{\oldstyle}{\fontfamily{futj}\selectfont}

but in charter.sty there nothing about oldstyle. This is not encouraging

score 4 · Answer 2 · 2011-12-15T09:19:28.650

4

read the documentation texdoc mathdesign there you'll find a topic "oldstyle figures"

With a faked font, because charter scmall caps are not free:

enter image description here

edited Dec 15 '11 at 09:19

answered Dec 15 '11 at 07:54

Well, it has a section which says '... oldstyle figures', but there is no mention at all of anything in the text. – Joseph Wright Dec 15 '11 at 08:35
sure, it is: "Now use the mathdesign package with the option expert. Small caps and oldstyle figure are available with the command \textsc{...}." – Dec 15 '11 at 08:45
Okay, I'd missed that one line. It seems very odd, however, to say that old style figures appear in \textsc: that's clearly an abuse (and pretty useless for the normal use case of having lower case figures in body text). – Joseph Wright Dec 15 '11 at 08:49
There is : The following options are available: expert if the corresponding postscript font are available on your system, this option activates them. The question now becomes : Is the corresponding font is available? – Alain Matthes Dec 15 '11 at 08:52
no, that is the default for a lot of TYPE 1 fonts, combining small caps and old style numbers ... One can choose any existing pfb file and copy it to bchrc8a.pfb and the oldstyle feature works. Modifying the style file is also possible. – Dec 15 '11 at 09:01

Oldstyle numbers with Charter font

2 Answers2