Chanakya to Unicode Converter

What is the Chanakya font?

Chanakya is a Devanagari typeface from the days before Unicode, and it is still common in Hindi newspaper offices, printing presses, DTP shops and old magazine archives. Files typed in it do not contain Hindi letters. They contain Western European characters such as æ, × and Ú, and the font paints each of those as a piece of Devanagari. Open the same file on a phone, or paste it into an email, and भारत सरकार turns into ÖæÚUÌ âÚU·¤æÚU.

Its table of characters has nothing in common with Kruti Dev. In Kruti Dev, आ is stored as vk; in Chanakya it is ¥æ. A Kruti Dev converter therefore produces nonsense from Chanakya text, which is why this page has its own converter with the full Chanakya character table.

Why convert Chanakya text to Unicode?

• It can be read anywhere. Unicode Hindi shows correctly on Android, iPhone, WhatsApp, Gmail, Facebook and every browser, with no font to install.
• It can be searched. Google, Word's Find box and website search only understand Unicode. A news archive kept in Chanakya cannot be searched for a single word until it is converted.
• Portals and editors expect it. Content management systems, e-paper uploads, online forms and most government portals accept Unicode only. Reporters who still type in Chanakya convert before they submit.

The opposite direction, Unicode to Chanakya, is for layout work: when a page is designed in PageMaker, CorelDRAW or an older InDesign set-up that relies on the Chanakya font, copy typed in Unicode has to be turned back into Chanakya characters before it can be placed.

How to use the Chanakya converter

1. Choose “Chanakya → Unicode” and paste your text into the left box. The Unicode Hindi appears on the right.
2. Press Copy, or download the result as a Word document.
3. For the reverse, choose “Unicode → Chanakya”, paste Unicode Hindi and press “Copy for Word”: the Hindi is pasted in the Chanakya font and English words in Arial.
4. For a whole document, use “Convert a Word file (.docx)”. Only runs set in a Chanakya font are changed, so English headings, tables and bold text stay as they were.

Chanakya examples

Chanakya character chart

Every single character the converter recognises, with the Unicode it becomes. The left column is what you see when the Chanakya font is not installed. Two characters move when converted: ç (the short i sign ि) is typed before its letter, and ü (reph, the र् drawn above a letter as in धर्म) is typed after it. Half letters end in ्; a following æ completes them, so ƒ is घ् but ľ is घ. The tails ¤ and U belong to the letter before them and are dropped.

Walkman-Chanakya 901 and 905

Fonts sold as Walkman-Chanakya 901 or 905 usually store Hindi the same way Kruti Dev does, so their text looks like jktLFkku (राजस्थान) rather than like ÚUæÁSÍæÙ. When you paste from Word or convert a .docx, parts set in a Walkman-Chanakya font are recognised by the font name and converted with the Kruti Dev layout automatically, and the converter tells you it did so. Plain text carries no font name: if it looks like that, the converter warns you, and the Krutidev to Unicode converter on our home page is the one to use.

DevLys 010, the font of Rajasthan's government typing, is stored in that Kruti Dev layout too, so it is not Chanakya either; text typed in it goes to the DevLys to Unicode converter.

If the result looks wrong

• Boxes or question marks: the text went through a program that does not keep these characters, for example a plain-text editor saving in ASCII. Copy straight from the Word file or PDF where the Chanakya font displays properly.
• Unicode text still looks broken in Word: the paragraph is probably still set in the Chanakya font. Select it and change the font to Mangal, Nirmala UI or Kokila.
• Digits became Hindi numerals: in the Chanakya font the keys 0–9 draw ०–९, so that is what the text really showed. Western digits typed in another font (Arial, Times) are kept when you paste from Word.
• A word still converts wrongly? Send the Chanakya text and the correct Hindi to hello@kruti-dev-to-unicode.com and we will add the rule.

Frequently Asked Questions