Preeti to Unicode Converter

What is Preeti?

Preeti is the Nepali font that most offices, newspapers and printing presses typed in before Unicode, and many typing classes in Nepal still teach its keyboard. A Preeti document does not hold Nepali letters. It holds ordinary keys such as g, ] and k, and the Preeti font draws each key as a piece of a Devanagari letter. Open the file on a computer without Preeti and नेपाल shows up as g]kfn.

Converting to Unicode replaces those keys with real Nepali letters. Unicode text reads correctly on phones, in Facebook and Viber, in Google Docs and on government websites, and it can be searched. The reverse, Unicode to Preeti, is for the places that still expect Preeti: a PageMaker page, an old office template, or a typing test sheet.

How to use it

1. Keep “Preeti → Unicode” selected and paste the Preeti text into the left box. Unicode Nepali appears on the right as you paste.
2. Copy it, or download it as a Word document set in Mangal.
3. For a whole Word file, use “Convert a Word file (.docx)”. Only text set in Preeti is changed, so English headings, tables and numbers in other fonts stay as they are.
4. For the other direction, choose “Unicode → Preeti”, paste Unicode Nepali and press “Copy for Word”. Nepali is pasted in Preeti and English in Arial.

Examples

The Preeti keys converters get wrong

Most Preeti keys stand for one letter, but these depend on their neighbours. They are where simple converters put a ि on the wrong letter or lose a र्. The right-hand column is this converter's output.

What Preeti cannot hold

• A colon. Preeti has none, so a colon is typed with the visarga key and comes back as ः. In the other direction a colon right after a Nepali word becomes ः too, which looks the same in print.
• ळ, ॠ and ऌ. The font has no glyph for them. In Unicode → Preeti they stay in Unicode, and “Copy for Word” sets them in Mangal so they still show.
• Western digits. In Preeti the 1–9 keys are letters (1 is ज्ञ, 5 is छ). Western digits in your Unicode text are kept out of the Preeti font; use “Copy for Word” so they land in Arial. Nepali digits ०–९ become Preeti digits.
• ॥ is typed as two । in Preeti, and is read back as ॥.
• Keys the standard font leaves empty. Some converters also read keys such as ¤, Ã or ø, which other versions of the font may use. The standard Preeti font draws nothing there, so they are left as they are; if your text uses them, email a sample to hello@kruti-dev-to-unicode.com.

Preeti character chart

Every single key the converter reads, and the Unicode it becomes. We drew each one in the Preeti font (version 1.0) to check it. Key pairs such as cf] (ओ) and km (फ) are in the table above.

If the result looks wrong

• Many letters are wrong: the text is probably in another Nepali font. Check the font name in Word; this page is checked against Preeti only.
• English words became Nepali letters: plain text has no font names, so everything is read as Preeti. Copy from Word instead, or convert the .docx: English set in another font is then kept.
• The Unicode text looks broken in Word: the paragraph is still set in Preeti. Change the font to Mangal, Nirmala UI or Kalimati.
• A word still comes out wrong? Send the Preeti text and the correct Nepali to hello@kruti-dev-to-unicode.com and we will fix the rule.

Frequently Asked Questions