How to Convert Preeti Font to Unicode Without Retyping

Many offices in Nepal have years of letters, notices and reports typed in the Preeti font. That text can't be posted online, read on a phone or searched by Google until it is in Unicode. The good news: you never have to retype it. A converter changes it in seconds.

Before you start: is your text really Preeti?

Copy a few words from your document and paste them into Notepad (or any plain text box). If you see English-looking gibberish such as g]kfn ;/sf/, the text is in a legacy font like Preeti. If you see proper Nepali (नेपाल सरकार), it's already Unicode and needs no conversion.

Preeti is the most common legacy font, but not the only one. Kantipur, Sagarmatha and a few others use different key layouts. A Preeti converter works only on Preeti text.

Step-by-step conversion

1. Open your document in Word, Excel, PageMaker or wherever it lives.
2. Select the Nepali text and copy it (Ctrl + C, or Cmd + C on a Mac).
3. Open the Preeti to Unicode converter. Make sure Preeti is selected in step 1.
4. Tap Paste, or click in the box and press Ctrl + V.
5. Check the result. The Unicode Nepali appears instantly in the "Nepali (Unicode)" box.
6. Tap Copy Nepali text and paste it into your new document, website or message.

That's it. Long documents with many pages convert just as quickly, because everything happens in your browser. Your text is not uploaded anywhere.

Example

Notice how Preeti writes ि before its letter (lk|o for प्रिय) and the reph (र्) after its syllable (sfof{no for कार्यालय). The converter moves these into the correct Unicode order automatically.

Tips for better results

Copy only the Nepali parts

In many documents, English words were typed in Times New Roman or Arial, right next to the Preeti text. Once copied, the font information is lost and everything looks like plain English letters, so the converter can't tell which words were English. They'll be converted to Nepali-looking gibberish too.

Two easy fixes:

• convert the Nepali paragraphs separately and paste the English words back in afterwards, or
• convert everything, then retype the few English words in the result.

Watch out for curly quotes

Microsoft Word often changes ' and " into curly quotes as you type. In Preeti those keys are ु and ू, so a curly quote can sneak into the text. Our converter recognises curly quotes and still turns them into ु and ू.

Check unusual conjuncts

Rare conjuncts typed with Alt codes in Preeti sometimes use special characters. The converter handles the common ones, such as द्ध, ट्ट, ङ्ग and द्व, but if you spot a strange symbol in the result, fix that one letter by hand.

Pick a Unicode font

After pasting into Word, select the text and choose a Unicode Devanagari font such as Mukta, Kalimati or Noto Sans Devanagari. If you leave the Preeti font selected, Word will try to draw the Unicode text with Preeti and you'll see boxes or English letters.

Converting Excel sheets

For a spreadsheet, copy one column at a time into the converter, then paste the result back into the same column. Rows stay in order because each line in the converter matches one line of your paste.

What about going back to Preeti?

Sometimes you need the opposite: you have Unicode text and an old Preeti template. Use the Unicode to Preeti converter, then follow our guide on using Preeti in Microsoft Word.

Why it's worth converting

Unicode text works on every phone and website, can be searched by Google, can be spell-checked, and doesn't depend on any one font being installed. Converting your old Preeti files once means you'll never see g]kfn gibberish again. Read Preeti vs Unicode to understand exactly why.