Re: [MiKTeX] Italic '4'

[Dr F. J. W. <F.J...@qm...>]

From: "Игорь Спекторский" <spe...@ma...>
To: <mik...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 6:16 AM
Subject: [MiKTeX] Italic '4'


> Does anybody know, why number '4' has a strange look in italic shape?
> This symbol is below than other symbols, including digits...

It may be that you are seeing the digits in the math italic font cmmi, in
which case they are "old style" digits that have 3,4,5,7,9 lowered (and
0,1,2 are small).  See Figure 4 in Appendix F of The TeXbook (on page 430 in
my edition).  This style of digit can be seen in maths books that were
printed in English rather a long time ago; I'm not sure just how long ago,
but I would guess that they went out of favour around 50 years ago.  I have
a book that was first printed in 1936 and last reprinted in 1947 that uses
that style of digits.

Francis