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I want to set a text and I know that I want old style numbers. Does anyone know of some source or maybe can themselves list fonts with old style numbers?

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Here's a list of common (CTAN available) roman(*) type1 fonts, mostly assuming T1 font encoding ...

ADF Baskervald - no ADF Berenis - native, use package option osf ADF Electrum - native, use package option osf ADF Romande - ONLY osf, i.e., no lining figures ADF Venturis - native, use package option osf ADF Venturis 2 - no ADF Venturis Old - osf standard, lining in titling fonts (see documentation for access) Adobe Minion Pro - native, use package option textosf or similar AE - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Antykwa Poltawskiego - via small caps Antykwa Torunska - via small caps Augie - no Auriocus Kalligraphicus (etc.) - ONLY osf, i.e., no lining figures Bera Serif - no Bitstream Charter - no Computer Modern - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding CM Bright - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding CM Dunhill - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding CM Fibonacci - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Concrete - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Day Roman & Day Roman S - ONLY osf, i.e., no lining figures DejaVu - no Droid - no European Modern - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding GFS Artemisia - via small caps GFS Bodoni - via small caps GFS Didot - via small caps GFS Neohellenic - via small caps Gyre Bonum - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Gyre Pagella - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Gyre Schola - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Gyre Termes - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Iwona - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding JAM Times - no Kurier - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Kerkis - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Kepler Project fonts - native, use package option oldstylenums Latin Modern with `lmodern` - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Latin Modern with `cfr-lm` - native (proportional osf), see documentation for other options Libertine Legacy (type1) - native, use package option osf B&H Lucida Bright - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding New Century Schoolbook - no Palatino - without mathpazo: \renewcommand*\rmdefault{pplj} Paratype PT Serif - no PXFonts - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Times Roman - faked smallcaps & oldstyle (TS1) figures via txfonts package TXFonts - per comment attached to Times Roman URW Garamond - no Uncial - no URW Antiqua - no URW Bookman - no URW Nimbus - try \oldstylenums, otherwise access directly via TS1 encoding Adobe Utopia - via small caps Zapf Chancery - no

(*) i.e., for fonts you might set up in \rmdefault. Just to round things out, I've thrown in some examples -- augie, iwona, uncial, etc -- that on first blush don't fit this mould.

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    Welcome back, Geoffrey! Commented Jan 16, 2012 at 0:43
  • There's another option for Latin Modern osf but I can't find it or remember its name. Something like lmoderno? Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 3:42
  • + ebgaramond (enabled by default) Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 20:11
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I assume, since you're asking about old style numerals, that you care about typography. I can talk about the fonts that I have experience with. What follows is my biased report. All of the following are free:

  • Palatino is popular. Looks great, supports math, easy install. See this example usage of the font.
  • Minion is trendy. Looks great, supports math, difficult to install for non-experts like me (I almost cried). See this example usage of the font.
  • lmodern is a version of Computer Modern that has old style numerals. They are accessible either through \oldstylenums{<123>} or through loading the cfr-lm package, which enables them globally. I'm not a big fan of how Computer Modern looks, and I've never actually seen old style numerals in a TeX'd document that uses Computer Modern. But it supports math and is easy to install.
  • Kp-fonts has great support for all your typographic needs, and serves as body text well. (EDIT: Comes with a sans serif companion.) Unfortunately I don't like how some of the letters look italicized. Supports math, easy install. See the documentation here.
  • Libertine is nice. (EDIT: Comes with a sans serif companion.) Looks great, easy install, but no math support. Documentation here.

Do look into the other ones in the link provided by doncherry in a comment to zeroth's answer.

EDIT Just tried the following fonts from doncherry's link. They each have distinctive features, so I wouldn't use them as the body font of anything without a good reason, I guess.

  • Kurier is sans serif. Has math, easy install.
  • Iwona is sans serif. No math, easy install.
  • GFS Didot has Greek. The Latin letters are based off of Palatino, which is somewhat distracting for me since I keep noticing the differences. Has math, easy install.
  • Venturis ADF is seriffed but also comes with a sans companion. No math, easy install.

All of the nine fonts in this list, by the way, have true small caps, which is nice.

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  • lmodern doesn't have old style numerals, cfr-lm does. Commented Jan 15, 2012 at 3:01
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    Oh, I forgot about that. I added an explanation to your answer. Let's delete these comments soon, you go first. Commented Jan 15, 2012 at 11:55
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    Technically, lmodern does since the fonts it installs are identical to those used by cfr-lm. The trouble is accessing them. All cfr-lm provides are the support files. Without the type1 fonts from lmodern, you would get no glyphs at all out of cfr-lm, osf or otherwise. Note that there are actually two sets of osf in Latin Modern (and two sets of lining figures). I'm not clear what you'd use tabular osf for, but they are available should you have need of them. Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 3:47
  • Linux Libertine has math support by either using the newtxmath package in pdftex or unicode-math together with Libertinus with the Unicode engines. Commented Apr 20, 2017 at 21:25
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You can scour this page for fonts Font catalogue which has many fonts displayed. If the oldstyle feature is included in the font spec, it would be shown.

I do not know of the update regularity of this webpage however it has many fonts! And many of these hasn't changed in a good time.

EDIT: Thanks @doncherry, I didn't think of google page search, of course that is way better! Here is the link for oldstyle searches on the previous mentioned site.

Other pages can be found under Font samplers in this site.

As a side note, I really enjoy the look of kpfonts which has oldstyle numbers among other things.

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  • The Font catalogue is great, but what a pity that it does not include numbers 0 to 9. Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 18:13
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    google.com/search?q=Oldstyle+site:http://www.tug.dk/… should give you an overview. I think it only includes fonts that have oldstyle and normal figures; tug.dk/FontCatalogue/boisik isn't included, even though or rather because it only has old style figures. Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 18:13
  • @Stephen: What do you mean? The digits should be listed starting at zero? Generally, the font samples include all digits. Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 18:14
  • @doncherry thanks, have included the link in the answer (it will be more complete from your suggestion!). Thank you! Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 18:18
  • @doncherry: E.g. tug.dk/FontCatalogue/lukassvatba does not list any number in the examples. OK, it does not have "math support", but surely there are numbers in the font? Or do the fonts without "math support" really do not contain plain numbers 0 to 9? In that case I misunderstood it. Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 18:19

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