How to Fix Kannada Font Gibberish (Mojibake) in Microsoft Word

Have you ever opened an old Microsoft Word document from a colleague, only to find that the beautiful Kannada text you were expecting looks like a random string of English letters and symbols, like PÀ£ÀßqÀ?

This phenomenon is often called "Mojibake," and it is extremely common in Karnataka government offices and older businesses. Fortunately, it is easy to fix!

Why is My Document Unreadable?

The document is not corrupt. It was simply typed using a "legacy ASCII font" (like Nudi 01 e, or Baraha) instead of the modern Unicode standard.

Because your computer does not have the specific Nudi font installed, Microsoft Word tries to be helpful by defaulting to an English font like Arial or Calibri. Since the document was originally typed using English keystrokes to mimic Kannada shapes, you see the raw English keystrokes instead.

The Solution: Two Ways to Fix It

graph TD
    A[Unreadable Document] --> B{What is your goal?}
    B -->|Just Print/Read locally| C[Option A: Install Legacy Font]
    B -->|Share online / Modernize| D[Option B: Convert to Unicode]
    C --> E[Document readable only on your PC]
    D --> F[Document universally readable]

You have two options depending on what you need to do with the document.

Option A: You just need to read/print the document

If you only need to read the document or print it, and you don't need to copy the text into an email or website:

1. Find out which font the document was typed in (usually Nudi or Baraha).
2. Download the exact .ttf (TrueType Font) file from the internet.
3. Install the font on your Windows or Mac computer (or better yet, switch to native Kannada keyboards).
4. Restart Microsoft Word. The document should instantly snap back to readable Kannada.

Option B: You need to use the text on the Web (Recommended)

If you need to copy the text into an email, a website, WhatsApp, or a modern publishing tool, simply installing the old font won't work. You must convert the text to Unicode.

How to convert:

1. Open your unreadable Microsoft Word document.
2. Select all the text (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A) and copy it (Ctrl+C or Cmd+C).
3. Open our Free Nudi to Unicode Converter in your browser.
4. Paste the gibberish text into the input box.
5. Click Convert.
6. Copy the resulting readable, standard Unicode text.
7. Paste it back into a new, clean Microsoft Word document.

By converting to Unicode, your document is now future-proof. It will open correctly on any computer, tablet, or smartphone in the world, without requiring any special fonts to be installed!