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  "identifier" : "/documentation/AppKit/NSFontSymbolicTraits",
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# NSFontSymbolicTraits

A symbolic description of stylistic aspects of a font.

```
typealias NSFontSymbolicTraits = UInt32
```

## Discussion

The upper 16 bits is used to describe appearance of the font (see [`NSFontFamilyClass`](/documentation/AppKit/NSFontFamilyClass)) whereas the lower 16 bits is used for typeface information (see [Typeface Information](/documentation/AppKit/typeface-information)). The font appearance information represented by the upper 16 bits can be used for stylistic font matching. The symbolic traits supersede the existing [`NSFontTraitMask`](/documentation/AppKit/NSFontTraitMask) type used by [`NSFontManager`](/documentation/AppKit/NSFontManager). The corresponding values are kept compatible between [`NSFontTraitMask`](/documentation/AppKit/NSFontTraitMask) and [`NSFontSymbolicTraits`](/documentation/AppKit/NSFontSymbolicTraits).

---

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