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Question

Underline decoration formatting not working correctly with superscript text?

  • January 14, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 7 views
Joel Woodford

Problem: When I apply the Underline decoration formatting to text that includes a superscripted ‘registered trademark’ symbol (this is a non negotiable inclusion), the underline hugs the baseline of the superscript part, so visually the line breaks between the non-superscripted characters. Font being used is Arial for accessibility reasons so it cannot be changed.

I have seen other users posting this issue as far back as 2024 and there has clearly been no fix other than the suggestion to change fonts which is not possible. Arial is such a universally used system font I can’t understand why this is even an issue to begin with.

Below is an illustrated breakdown of the issue:

 

Desired effect...

 

...and what I get in Figma.

 

1 reply

djv
Figmate
  • djv
  • Community Support
  • January 15, 2026

Hi ​@Joel Woodford, thanks for flagging this! 

This is a known issue with superscript and underline related to the specific font you’re using. Figma tries to use any superscript glyphs provided by the font. If it isn’t provided, Figma draws a synthesized version by using the font's standard version of the character, shrinking it, and positioning it accordingly. While this shouldn't affect the underline decoration, this happens because the superscript has a different baseline. 
 
While not ideal, a temporary solution would be to choose another font that specifically supports superscript or manually adjusting the underline offset of the superscripted portion to get it to match better.

Please know that this is on the team’s radar for future improvement. 

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