New Participant

Allow percentages for line height

198 replies
26000 views

Firstly great job Figma Font variables are here!!!

Figma tutorial: Variables for typography

The only thing missing is the use of percentages in the line-height property.

You can not use a percentage in the line-height as it only accepts variables that are a number type.

Although the variables for line-height caters for pixel (absolute) line-heights (10,12,14)- it does not accommodate relative line heights.

In other words you can’t use percentage variables for line heights that are a percentage of the font size (100%, 120%,150%).

Interestingly …You can use a variable for letter-spacing ( which accepts a number variable - but reads it as a percentage) - the challenge remains that line heights by default are absolute not percentages - even though you can input a percentage.

Percentages allow greater flexibility and less calculations

Word around would be to allow formula in a variable
e.g. =[variable] * 1.5

Or figuring out a way for the line height to be toggle between absolute or relative application of the number variable.

Show previous replies

Megan_Trimble

Hoping this update makes an appearance at Config. This would be really useful to my team!

Chris_Agi

+1 vote

Ive had to create multiple token values for each font size used to ensure we have scalability for our design system, which is a massive pain in the butt…

David.Stenbeck

Similar to branching, this is like someone who never used tokens for typography designed this. % for line height is missing, you still have to make styles instead of going towards the tokens standard. it’s so weird…

well… untill you realize “Hey we got number and string variables… it’s cheaper to just allow them for the existing fields instead of making something good… should we do it the cheap way?”

R

Ramesh_Vishwakarma

Anyone find any solution to use % in line-height?

John_Fraskos

New Member

This is absolutely needed, line height vars are un-usable without %. Come on people.

Andreas_Nordenson

New Participant

I love you Figma but im heavily disappointed the line-height percentage support wasnt announced at Config. This is a major blocker for a vast amount of teams that work with design systems.

Cristiano_Akihito1

New Member

It would be important for Figma to consider this issue and implement % in the line-height variables. I was waiting for this technical debt to be resolved in Figma config. We are waiting for this correction so that we can fully implement variables in typography.