People often ask whether they should “use Kruti Dev or Mangal”. The question hides a difference that matters: they are not two typefaces competing for the same job. One is a legacy encoding, the other is Unicode. Choosing between them is mostly choosing how your text is stored.
The short answer
- Use Unicode (Mangal, Nirmala UI, Kokila, Noto Sans Devanagari) for anything that will be shared, searched, published, emailed, read on a phone or stored for the long term.
- Use Kruti Dev only when someone requires it: a print shop’s template, a typing-test environment that names it, or a legacy workflow that cannot read Unicode yet.
You can move between them, so you don’t have to choose once and live with it. Type in whichever you prefer and convert at the end.
What each one is
Kruti Dev (most often Kruti Dev 010) is a font from the desktop-publishing era. It stores Devanagari as ordinary English letters and relies on the font to draw the right shapes. Typing “Hkkjr” with Kruti Dev switched on shows “भारत”. Without the font, you see “Hkkjr”. Its key positions follow the Hindi typewriter arrangement, which is why it stuck with typists.
Mangal is a font for Unicode. The file stores the real Devanagari characters (भ, ा, र, त) and Mangal just decides how they look. Mangal comes with Windows (on Windows 10 and 11 as one of the optional Devanagari supplemental fonts, which Windows usually adds with Hindi language support). Other fonts, such as Nirmala UI, Kokila and Noto Sans Devanagari, display exactly the same text, so you can change typeface later without touching the content.
Side-by-side
| Kruti Dev | Mangal (Unicode) | |
|---|---|---|
| What the file stores | English letters, drawn as Hindi by the font | Real Devanagari characters |
| Works on phones and websites | No, unless the font is installed | Yes |
| Searchable and copy-pasteable between apps | No | Yes |
| Spell-check and proofing tools | Don’t understand it | Work with it |
| Change typeface later | Only to other fonts with the same encoding | Any Unicode Devanagari font |
| Print / DTP software | Often required in older workflows | Supported in current tools |
| Typing layout | Hindi typewriter style | Several, including InScript and typewriter-style layouts |
| Where it still appears | Offices, courts, presses, typing tests | Everything modern |
When Kruti Dev is the right choice
- A printer or press tells you to send it. Some still run older layout software.
- A typing test or exam environment names it. Rules vary by exam and change over time, so read the official notification instead of relying on a forum post. See the exam typing guide.
- You are editing an old file that is full of Kruti Dev. Editing in the same font avoids breaking it, though converting it once is usually better.
When Mangal (Unicode) is the right choice
- You post to the web, a CMS, social media or WhatsApp.
- You send email or share Google Docs.
- You want the text to be findable by search (including your own computer’s search).
- You need to mix Hindi with other languages in a single document.
- You are writing something that has to be readable ten years from now. Unicode is a standard; a particular font encoding is not.
Government and official-language departments have encouraged Unicode for years. If you work in one, your department’s own circulars are the final word on what is expected.
“But my fingers know Kruti Dev”
Typing habits and text encoding are separate. If you learned on a typewriter-style layout, look for a Unicode keyboard that offers the same arrangement. The text you produce will be Unicode even though the key positions feel familiar. Which layouts are available depends on your operating system and any keyboard tools you install, so check what yours offers.
Switching between them
- Kruti Dev → Mangal: paste into Kruti Dev to Unicode, copy the result, set the font to Mangal. For a whole document, use the Word file converter.
- Mangal → Kruti Dev: use Unicode to Kruti Dev, paste into Word, and set the font to Kruti Dev 010. The converter flags any character Kruti Dev cannot show.
Neither direction should be a lossy leap of faith. Kruti Dev is a smaller character set, so the reverse direction is where you read the loss report before you print or submit anything.
A practical default
Write everything in Unicode. Keep a Kruti Dev converter bookmarked for the occasional job that insists on the old font. That way your documents stay readable, searchable and portable, and you still meet the requirements of the printers and exams that haven’t moved on.