100s of Free Unicode Fonts for Indian Languages
There are 100s of free Unicode fonts available on the net for various Indian languages like Tamil, Hindi, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Oriya, Assamese, Kashmiri, etc. Links to download the same are given below. Please note that these fonts were not developed by me but by other developers. Hence, links below (Link1, Link2, etc.) will take you to external sites. You can download the Unicode fonts by clicking the download links available therein and/or following the instructions therein.
Link1 - http://gandhijifont.com
Link2 - http://lipikaar.com/fonts
Link3 - http://www.ildc.in/index.html
Link4 - http://info.webdunia.com/downloadfont.htm
Link5 - http://tdil.mit.gov.in/download/openfonts.htm
Link6 - http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/ttf-indic-fonts
Link7 - fonts installed automatically, along with Microsoft products
Link8 - multilingual (many languages) fonts - Arial Unicode MS and Code2000
Link9 - 100s of free Tamil Unicode fonts - http://azhagi.com/freefonts.html#unicode
Note: 'ttf-indic-fonts_0.5.10.tar.gz' in Link6 above contains fonts for all prominent Indian languages in one single archive with fonts for each language already segregated in separate folders.
Extracting fonts
If the fonts you download are inside archived files - .zip, .deb, .tgz, etc. - then, to extract them, use applications like Winzip or 7zip. Note that to extract files from '.tgz' archives, you can use Winzip; to extract files from '.deb' archives, you can use 7zip.
Fonts provided by Microsoft
MS has developed Unicode fonts specific to each Indian language. They are loaded along with the installation of the OS (operating system) itself or along with the installation of certain Microsoft products. A list of them is as follows.
(#) 'Arial Unicode MS' ('aum' for short) font comprises all the characters of almost all prominent Indian languages. 'aum' gets installed along with the FULL installation of MS Office 2002 (i.e. Office XP), MS Office 2003 and above. To know how to find out whether you have this font installed in your system and to know how to install this font if not found in your system, please visit http://azhagi.com/uniset.html#wordpp and read appropriate portions under 'Method B'.
Code2000 font
Apart from 'aum', there is also a shareware font called Code2000 ('c2k' for short), which also compries all characters of almost all prominent Indian languages. So, whether you find 'aum' in your system or not, you shall download 'c2k' font. Our sincere thanks should go to the author of 'c2k' for his EXTREMELY painstaking effort in creating such a wonderful font. 'c2k' is available for download here - http://www.code2000.net/code2000_page.htm. Visit this page and navigate to the bottom of this page. Therein, you will find the link to download this font. After downloading, unzip the downloaded file (code2000.zip) and extract the font (code2000.ttf) to 'c:\windows\fonts' directory. That iss all to it.
How to install the downloaded fonts?
In case you are new to computers and do not know how to install the Indic (Indian language) fonts you download, then follow instructions below, which are for Windows XP operating system. The instructions for other operating systems are not given, as they are almost similar.
After saving or extracting (if the font is inside an archived file - .zip, .deb, .tgz, etc. - to extract files from '.tgz' archives, you can use Winzip; to extract files from '.deb' archives, you can use 7zip) the font to a folder of your choice in your system, you can opt to do one of the following.
There are 100s of free Unicode fonts available on the net for various Indian languages like Tamil, Hindi, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Oriya, Assamese, Kashmiri, etc. Links to download the same are given below. Please note that these fonts were not developed by me but by other developers. Hence, links below (Link1, Link2, etc.) will take you to external sites. You can download the Unicode fonts by clicking the download links available therein and/or following the instructions therein.
Link1 - http://gandhijifont.com
Link2 - http://lipikaar.com/fonts
Link3 - http://www.ildc.in/index.html
Link4 - http://info.webdunia.com/downloadfont.htm
Link5 - http://tdil.mit.gov.in/download/openfonts.htm
Link6 - http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/ttf-indic-fonts
Link7 - fonts installed automatically, along with Microsoft products
Link8 - multilingual (many languages) fonts - Arial Unicode MS and Code2000
Link9 - 100s of free Tamil Unicode fonts - http://azhagi.com/freefonts.html#unicode
Note: 'ttf-indic-fonts_0.5.10.tar.gz' in Link6 above contains fonts for all prominent Indian languages in one single archive with fonts for each language already segregated in separate folders.
Extracting fonts
If the fonts you download are inside archived files - .zip, .deb, .tgz, etc. - then, to extract them, use applications like Winzip or 7zip. Note that to extract files from '.tgz' archives, you can use Winzip; to extract files from '.deb' archives, you can use 7zip.
Fonts provided by Microsoft
MS has developed Unicode fonts specific to each Indian language. They are loaded along with the installation of the OS (operating system) itself or along with the installation of certain Microsoft products. A list of them is as follows.
| Language | Font Name |
| Tamil | Latha (Win2K & above), Vijaya (Win7 & above) |
| Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, etc. | Mangal (Win2K & above), Aparajitha (Win7 & above) |
| Telugu | Gautami (WinXP & above), Vani (Win7 & above) |
| Kannada | Tunga (WinXP & above) |
| Malayalam | Kartika (WinXP-SP2 & above) |
| Gujarati | Shruti (WinXP & above) |
| Bengali | Vrinda (Win XP-SP2 & above), Shonar Bangla (Win7 & above) |
| Punjabi | Raavi (WinXP & above) |
| Oriya | Kalinga (WinVista and above) |
| Arial Unicode MS# | All Indian languages# (Office 2002 and above) |
Code2000 font
Apart from 'aum', there is also a shareware font called Code2000 ('c2k' for short), which also compries all characters of almost all prominent Indian languages. So, whether you find 'aum' in your system or not, you shall download 'c2k' font. Our sincere thanks should go to the author of 'c2k' for his EXTREMELY painstaking effort in creating such a wonderful font. 'c2k' is available for download here - http://www.code2000.net/code2000_page.htm. Visit this page and navigate to the bottom of this page. Therein, you will find the link to download this font. After downloading, unzip the downloaded file (code2000.zip) and extract the font (code2000.ttf) to 'c:\windows\fonts' directory. That iss all to it.
How to install the downloaded fonts?
In case you are new to computers and do not know how to install the Indic (Indian language) fonts you download, then follow instructions below, which are for Windows XP operating system. The instructions for other operating systems are not given, as they are almost similar.
After saving or extracting (if the font is inside an archived file - .zip, .deb, .tgz, etc. - to extract files from '.tgz' archives, you can use Winzip; to extract files from '.deb' archives, you can use 7zip) the font to a folder of your choice in your system, you can opt to do one of the following.
- Option-1: Copy/Paste or Drag/Drop the font file (say Tscu_Comic.ttf) into the 'Fonts' folder (usually 'C:\Windows\Fonts')
- Option-2: Navigate* to the 'Fonts' folder (usually 'C:\Windows\Fonts'). Click 'File->Install New Font', select the folder where you have saved/extracted the font to be installed and click OK.
