Unicode to Preeti converter

When you need Preeti instead of Unicode

For anything online — forms, email, a CV, social media — keep the text in Unicode. Preeti only reads as Nepali on a computer that has the font and in a program that lets you choose it.

• A printing press or flex shop that sets its work in Preeti and asks for the text in that font.
• An office template — a letterhead, form or notice — already written in Preeti, where a Unicode paragraph would look different from everything around it.
• Older design software that does not join Devanagari letters properly, so Unicode text comes out broken while Preeti, which is ordinary letters in a special font, comes out right.

How to use the converted text

The Preeti font has to be installed on the computer that opens the file, including the press's computer. If it is not, they will see the scrambled letters.

1. Paste or type the Nepali Unicode text in the left box. The Preeti text appears on the right as you type.
2. Press Copy Preeti and paste it into your document.
3. Select the pasted text and set its font to Preeti. Until you do, it looks like scrambled English — that is correct.
4. Read it through once. The marks that sit above and before letters (ि and the र् written over a letter) are where a converter is most likely to slip.

What does not convert

English words. Preeti has no English letters: every key on the keyboard is a Nepali character. An English word in your text is left as typed, and under the Preeti font it prints as Nepali characters. Select English words afterwards and give them an English font.

The digits 0 to 9. The same applies: under Preeti the key 0 prints ण्, not zero. Type digits in Nepali (२०८३) before converting and they come out right, or set English digits in an English font afterwards.

Other fonts. Kantipur, PCS Nepali and others share much of Preeti's layout but not all of it. This converter writes for Preeti; if the file uses another font, check the result before it goes to print.

Unicode and Preeti, side by side

Going the other way — a Preeti file you need as real Nepali text — use Preeti to Unicode. To type Nepali from an English keyboard in the first place, use Nepali Unicode typing, and to practise either layout, the typing test.

• नेपाल → g]kfn
• मेरो नाम राम हो। → d]/f] gfd /fd xf].
• कार्यालय → sfo{fno
• २०८३ साल → @)*# ;fn