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Playfair Display

Playfair Display carries true small capitals, a feature present in 179 of the 1,899 families. It offers six weights, each with an italic, which is more styles than 90% of the serifs have. Only 18% of today’s serifs were added to the library before it.

Outlines drawn from the PlayfairDisplay file at weight 400. The dashed line is the median x-height of the serifs.

Measure, per 1,000 em	Playfair Display	Median of 354 serifs
Ascender (top of d)	784	747
Cap height (top of H)	708	700
x-height (top of x)	515	482
Descender (foot of p)	−181	−233
x-height ÷ cap height	0.73	0.70
Average lowercase width	509	514
Ink coverage, a–z	36.9%	41.5%

Versions and companionsA shared designer and a shared name or matching measurements

Version	Compared with Playfair Display	Added
Playfair Display SC	no ascenders (capital forms on the lowercase keys); lowercase wider by 115; static files only	2012

Where it sitsEvery serif family is a dot

X-height across the 336 serifs with ascenders

302600

Just below: Marko One, Tienne; just above: IBM Plex Serif, Noto Serif HK; level with: Kalnia

Average lowercase width across the 354 serifs

2751,028

Just below: Jacques Francois, Sura; just above: Cactus Classical Serif, Libre Bodoni

Weights and styles

One variable file per style covers every weight from 400 to 900.

Axis	Tag	Range	In the library
Weight	wght	400 to 900	545 families

Scripts4 subsets · families sharing each

Inside the file

In the measured file: 1,103 glyphs and 659 mapped Unicode characters; 23 OpenType feature tags.

Declared features: capitals to small capitals, old-style figures, lining figures, fractions, superscripts, subscripts, ordinals, standard ligatures, discretionary ligatures, contextual alternates and case-sensitive forms.

Measured neighboursClosest in proportion; differences per 1,000 em

IBM Plex Seriftaller x-height, wider Wittgensteinshorter x-height, wider PT Serifshorter x-height, narrower Texturinashorter x-height, wider Sawarabi Minchoshorter x-height, wider Dominetaller x-height, wider

Outside the serif class

Ubuntu Sanstaller x-height, narrower Underdogshorter x-height, narrower Ubuntu Sans Monotaller x-height, wider

Rank every family against Playfair Display

Same designer

Claus Eggers Sørensen is also credited on Inknut Antiqua, Playfair and Bacasime Antique.