Tabular figures
Tabular figures (numerals)
A font feature where every digit has the same width, so numbers don't shift when they change. Important for live counters and timecode displays.
In depth
Tabular (or 'monospaced') figures are a digit-spacing variant in many modern fonts. By default, fonts use proportional figures — '1' is narrower than '0', so a counter ticking from 100 to 200 visibly jiggles. Tabular figures fix every digit at equal width, eliminating the jiggle. For captioning, tabular figures matter when displaying timecodes, durations, or running counters on screen. They're activated via OpenType `tnum` or the `font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums` CSS property.
When to use it
Use tabular figures whenever caption text contains numbers that change (timecode overlays, counters, prices). Skip for general dialogue captions.
Frequently asked
Do all fonts support tabular figures?+
Most modern designed fonts do — Inter, Roboto, system-ui all expose `tnum`. Some display fonts don't, but display fonts shouldn't carry numbers anyway.