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HindidevanagariLegacy → Unicode

Chanakya to Unicode Converter

Turn Walkman Chanakya 905 text that looks like “½f"k” into real Hindi: “ऋषि”. Unicode text reads correctly on any phone, browser or search engine.

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  • Runs on your device

    Nothing is uploaded. Works offline once loaded.

  • Both directions

    Swap to go Unicode → Chanakya in one click.

  • Loss report

    Characters a font can’t show are flagged, not dropped.

  • 159 mappings

    Every one is listed in the chart below.

01 · About the font

Walkman Chanakya 905, in plain words.

Walkman Chanakya: a legacy Devanagari font family from Hindi newspaper, magazine and book production.

The Walkman Chanakya fonts (such as the 901 and 905 releases) belong to the DTP era in which newspapers and publishers laid out pages in software that predates Unicode. As with every font in this family of encodings, the file stores English letters and the font draws Devanagari.

Chanakya has its own key assignments. Text typed in Chanakya is not interchangeable with Kruti Dev or DevLys: switching the font on a Chanakya file produces wrong letters, not corrected ones. The reliable route between any two legacy fonts is through Unicode.

A few glyph mappings were corrected after an entry-by-entry check against IIT Delhi’s InDesignFontConverters and KrutiExtract, two open-source converters. That check covered selected glyphs only, not the whole IIT table.

Walkman Chanakya 905 (as stored)

½f"k iQy [kkrs gSaA

Unicode (converted by this page)

ऋषि फल खाते हैं।

This sample is converted with the same engine as the tool above, when this page was built, and matches the expected text exactly.

Who still uses it

  • 01

    Newspapers and magazines

    Chanakya was used for Hindi page production, so some older editorial archives are in this font.

  • 02

    Publishers and printers

    Book and brochure files made in older layout software.

  • 03

    Archivists and digitisation projects

    Anyone who needs these archives to be searchable has to convert them to Unicode first.

02 · How to

How to convert Chanakya to Unicode (3 steps)

Legacy text only looks like Hindi on a computer that has Walkman Chanakya 905 installed. Everywhere else (phones, WhatsApp, websites, search results) it appears as English letters like “½f"k”. Converting to Unicode fixes that for good.

  1. Paste your Chanakya text

    Check that “From” says Walkman Chanakya 905, then paste your text. Chanakya text such as “½f"k iQy [kkrs gSaA” looks like a jumble of English letters and symbols until it is converted.
    Chanakya to Unicode converter with “From” set to Walkman Chanakya 905 and the Chanakya sample “½f"k iQy [kkrs gSaA” pasted into the input box

  2. Check the Unicode Hindi

    The Unicode Hindi appears as you paste: “ऋषि फल खाते हैं।”. Nothing in this Chanakya sample was flagged. When something is, a “notes” button lists it.
    Output box showing the Chanakya sample converted to Unicode Hindi: “ऋषि फल खाते हैं।”

  3. Copy it or save a Word file

    Copy puts “ऋषि फल खाते हैं।” on your clipboard, ready for WhatsApp, Gmail or Google Docs. The Word button saves a .docx already set in Mangal, so you don’t need Walkman Chanakya 905 to read it.
    Chanakya to Unicode converter after Copy, with the green “Copied” button, the message “Copied — paste it anywhere.” and the Download Word (.docx) button labelled

Pick a Unicode font. Mangal or Nirmala UI on Windows; Noto Sans Devanagari or Noto Serif Devanagari for editorial work on the web.

Have a whole document instead of a paragraph? The Word file converter keeps tables, bold text and layout.

03 · Output font

Set the output font in MS Word or Google Docs

Unicode text is real Hindi, so any Hindi-capable font will display it. Pick one that looks good for your document.

Microsoft Word

  1. 1Paste the converted text, then press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on Mac) to select everything.
  2. 2On the Home tab, click the font box, type “Mangal” and press Enter.
  3. 3Optional: Review → Language → Set Proofing Language → Hindi, so spell-check does not underline everything.
  4. 4If the text still shows boxes, install a Unicode font that covers the script, such as Noto Sans Devanagari.

Google Docs

  1. 1Paste the converted text and select it with Ctrl+A.
  2. 2Open the font menu → More fonts, search for “Noto Sans Devanagari” (or Noto Serif Devanagari) and add it.
  3. 3Apply the font. Because the text is Unicode, it also copies cleanly into Gmail, Sheets and Slides.

04 · Mapping chart

Every key, and the letter it makes.

This is the actual table the converter uses, generated from the engine. Search for a key you see in garbled text, or for a letter you want to type.

159 mappings

Click a letter to copy the Unicode character. Click the key cap to copy the Walkman Chanakya 905 key.

05 · Known limits

What to watch for.

  • In Walkman Chanakya the ß key is ह्र, not a closing quote as in Kruti Dev. A closing curly quote whose meaning cannot be confirmed is kept and flagged.
  • Chanakya fonts exist in several numbered releases. This converter targets 905; other releases may differ in places.
  • Do not use the Kruti Dev converter on Chanakya text. The result looks like Hindi but is full of wrong letters.
  • This profile covers Walkman Chanakya 905 only; other Chanakya font families may use different slots. Look up any letter you doubt in the mapping chart.

Coverage in this converter

  • Conjuncts37
  • Consonants35
  • Half forms28
  • Punctuation14
  • Vowels13
  • Vowel signs13
  • Digits10
  • Signs8
  • Nukta1

Compared with HinLegacy on 720 conversions, 236 matched exactly. All 484 differences were errors in HinLegacy. Round trip: we converted 50,757 Devanagari test strings (word-list words, sentences, and every consonant, vowel sign, conjunct, reph and nukta combination) to Walkman Chanakya 905 and back. 50,752 came back exactly; the other 5 contain a character Walkman Chanakya 905 has no glyph for, which the converter flags. See the accuracy page for every difference.

06 · FAQ

Questions about Chanakya to Unicode

Can I convert an old newspaper archive in Chanakya?

Yes, for text. Paste or open the text, convert to Unicode, and review. For Word files use the Word file converter, which only converts text set in a recognised legacy font. Text inside PDFs and images needs to be extracted as text first.

Is Chanakya the same as Kruti Dev?

No. They are different encodings with different key assignments. Using the wrong converter produces wrong letters.

Is Chanakya to Mangal the same as Chanakya to Unicode?

Yes. Mangal is a Unicode font, so text converted to Unicode is ready for Mangal: select it and choose Mangal. The same text also displays in Nirmala UI, Kokila or Noto Sans Devanagari without converting again.

Is my Walkman Chanakya 905 text uploaded to a server?

No. The conversion runs as JavaScript in your browser, so your text never leaves your device. Once the page has loaded, it works offline too.

Which font should I use after converting Walkman Chanakya 905 to Unicode?

Mangal or Nirmala UI on Windows; Noto Sans Devanagari or Noto Serif Devanagari for editorial work on the web. Unicode text is not tied to one font, so you can switch typeface later without converting again.

How accurate is the Walkman Chanakya 905 converter?

In our tests it agreed exactly with HinLegacy on 236 of 720 conversions. Each of the other 484 was reviewed, and every one was an error in HinLegacy. The sample on this page converts exactly as expected. No fluent-speaker review has been done, so read important text before you print or submit it.