Third-party Fonts

A look at fonts provided by other sources.

The use of Punjabi online - especially using Unicode - has only just started to take-off. As such, there are very few Unicode Gurmukhi fonts available. This page lists all known third-party Gurmukhi fonts.

We also provide free, Unicode 4.0 Gurmukhi fonts not listed on this page.

Notes

Gurmukhi compatibility varies depending on the Unicode version. Gurmukhi has been present in Unicode since version 1.1. Unicode 4.0 adds U+0A01 (Adak Bindi) and U+0A03 (Visarga).

Arial Unicode MS

Version: 1.01

Gurmukhi Compatibility: 1.1

This is a huge font - over 22MB in size. It contains complete coverage for Unicode 2.1. Due to its vast size, it is not recommended for widespread use because its size can make it slow and difficult to transport. It is designed to fill in blanks when other fonts cannot represent certain glyphs.

This font is not available to download and comes packaged with various Microsoft products.

Code 2000

Version: 1.14

Gurmukhi Compatibility: 4.0

This is a large (6MB) shareware font. Like Arial Unicode MS, it support a vast range of Unicode characters. It is shareware and costs $5 to register.

Download it from James Kass's web site.

Raavi

Version: 1.06

Gurmukhi Compatibility: 1.1

Raavi is arguably the best quality commercial Gurmukhi font available. It is a general purpose font and is suited for web page and application use.

This font is not available to download and comes packaged with various Microsoft products, including Microsoft Windows XP.

Saraswati 5

Version: 2003-01-17

Gurmukhi Compatibility: 1.1 (No conjuncts or OpenType tables)

Contains the basic glyphs for Gurmukhi but does not contain OpenType tables and so is not fully compatible. However, some systems may be able to make use of characters in the private use area.

Available from the Sun Download Centre. Requires free registration.