How to Type Hindi in Kruti Dev
Why Hindi typing in Kruti Dev looks like English typing, the full key map, the input order for conjuncts and reph, and ten lines to practise on.
कृतिदेव में हिंदी टाइप करना — कीबोर्ड मैप, क्रम और अभ्यास।
Why you type Hindi with English keys
A Kruti Dev document is not Hindi as a language inside the file — it is a set of English characters that a special font draws as Devanagari. When you press H and k and k and j and r, the file stores "Hkkjr", and the font renders it as भारत. That is why a Kruti Dev file looks like gibberish English when the font is absent, and why a modern website ignores the same string.
So typing in Kruti Dev is a translation exercise at the moment of typing: you press the English key whose font cell contains the Hindi shape you want. Two consequences follow, and they explain nearly every beginner mistake:
- The keyboard carries the meaning, not the file. If you type the same keys without the font applied, you get Latin letters, not Hindi.
- Order matters. A few marks are typed on the opposite side of the consonant from where they appear on screen — the short-i sign is typed first, and the reph marker is typed after the syllable even though it prints above it.
The map below is taken directly from the converter's 225-entry table, not typed from memory. Each box shows the key or key sequence on top and the shape it produces underneath.
Keyboard map
Independent vowels
These are typed at the start of a word or after another vowel. Note that long forms are built by adding k — v gives अ and vk gives आ.
Consonants
Most consonants are a single lowercase key. Others need a trailing k because their plain key position holds the half form; where that happens, the next table shows the half form.
Half forms
Half forms (consonant without the inherent अ) are mostly uppercase versions of the same key. These are the building blocks of conjuncts and of words such as स्कूल.
Vowel signs (matras)
Vowel signs follow the consonant they attach to, and they stack: को is d plus ks. Two entries need a special note — see the next section.
Two keys that behave differently
f is not a letter here: it is the short-i vowel sign, typed before the consonant and rendered after it. प्रिंट, किताब, निजी and हिंदी all depend on it. Z is the reph marker, typed after a syllable whose first consonant carries a र् — it renders as the hook above the cluster. Neither key has a standalone shape.
Nukta letters
Letters that take a dot underneath are typed as the base consonant followed by +, or with an explicit combination shown here.
Frequent conjuncts and ligatures
These have single dedicated keys instead of being assembled from half forms. Learning five of them — क्ष, त्र, ज्ञ, श्र and कृ — covers a large share of everyday text.
Digits
The font carries Devanagari digits on separate positions. Most office templates nevertheless use ordinary ASCII digits, because the legacy positions are awkward to reach on a normal keyboard.
Punctuation
Punctuation is remapped too, which is why a Kruti Dev string often looks like it is full of stray brackets.
The danda (।) is the character most people need first: it is A, so a sentence typed gS followed by A prints है।
Input order for the five cases that trip people up
The map tells you which key draws which shape. It does not tell you in which order to press keys. These five patterns do:
1. A consonant with a long-aa sign
Type the consonant, then k: d gives क and dk gives का. The same k is used inside longer words, so नाम is uke.
2. The short-i sign goes first
For a syllable with ि, press f, then the consonant, then any remaining signs. किताब is fdrkc: f (i-sign) + d (क) + r (त) + k (aa-sign) + c (ब). Do not type the consonant first — that produces a different syllable.
3. Reph is typed after the cluster
When a syllable begins with र्, finish the cluster and then press Z. कर्म is deZ: d (क) + e (म) + Z (reph). The hook prints over क, which is why the marker sits at the end of the string, not the start.
4. Half forms stack without extra keys
A conjunct is simply half form after half form until the final full consonant. स्कूल is Ldwy: L (स्) + d (क) + w (oo-sign) + y (ल). No halant key is needed — the halant is already inside the half form.
5. Some conjuncts are one key
क्षेत्र is {ks=: { (क्ष) + s (e-sign) + = (त्र). Trying to assemble these from half forms produces a different result, because the font has a dedicated combined glyph.
Office and exam typing habits
Kruti Dev survives mostly in offices, typing tests and exam halls, so the practical tips below come from that setting rather than from casual writing.
- Close every sentence with the danda. Use A, not a full stop. A Latin full stop in a Kruti Dev document prints as a dot that sits too low and too small for Hindi text.
- Keep digits in ASCII unless the template says otherwise. Ordinary 1, 2, 3 are what most office templates expect. Devanagari numerals exist on separate positions in the font, but they are rarely typed and can look inconsistent with the rest of a file.
- Do not mix fonts inside one document. Switching between Kruti Dev and a Unicode font mid-paragraph ruins line spacing and makes later conversion unreliable. Type the whole document in one font, then convert.
- Type line by line for long documents. Kruti Dev has no spell checker that understands the text, so a mistake at word level will not be flagged. Reading back one line at a time catches mapping errors that a full-page glance misses.
- Watch the spaces around punctuation. In the legacy layout, a comma typed from ] and brackets typed from ¼ and ½ can sit tight against the previous word. Check the printed spacing, not the raw keys.
Practice: ten lines with answers
Type each Kruti Dev line in Word with Kruti Dev 010 applied, then compare with the Hindi answer. The answers below were produced by running the Kruti Dev string through the converter — they are not written from memory, so they are a reliable check of the key sequence.
Before you submit the work
A Kruti Dev file is readable only on a machine that has the font. Portals, email attachments and websites will not show it correctly, and a recipient without the font sees English letters. For anything that leaves the office — an application form, a portal upload, a press release sent by email — convert the finished text to Unicode first with the Kruti Dev to Unicode converter, and keep the Kruti Dev original for your own records.
Going the other way, because a press or template requires the legacy font, use the Unicode to Kruti Dev converter. If the target machine has no font, see the font page; if you are unsure which version your template uses, see the version comparison.