How Gurbani Akhar works
Before Unicode was widely supported, Gurmukhi fonts mapped each letter to a key on an English keyboard. Typing k in a Gurbani Akhar font shows ਕ; typing s shows ਸ. The file still contains the letters “k” and “s”.
Gurbani Akhar also types in visual order. Sihari (ਿ) appears before the letter on screen, so it is typed first: siq gives ਸਤਿ.
How Unicode works
Unicode gives every Gurmukhi character its own code point in the range U+0A00 to U+0A7F. ਕ is U+0A15 on every phone, computer and website, whatever font is used. Characters are stored in spoken order, so sihari comes after the letter it belongs to and the device draws it in the right place.
Side by side
| Gurbani Akhar | Unicode | |
|---|---|---|
| What is stored | Latin letters (k, s, w…) | Real Gurmukhi characters |
| Needs a special font | Yes, on every device | No |
| Searchable on Google | No | Yes |
| Screen readers | Read out English letters | Read Gurmukhi |
| Copy to WhatsApp or social media | Shows English letters | Shows Gurmukhi |
When to use each
Use Unicode for anything other people will read on their own devices: websites, social media, WhatsApp, email and documents you share. Gurbani Akhar is still useful when you need a specific display or handwritten font that only exists in the older encoding, such as for print designs.
How to convert
Paste Gurbani Akhar text into the Punjabi Unicode Converter. The Unicode version appears instantly, and you can convert back the other way too.
Questions
Search engines read the stored letters, so Gurbani Akhar text is indexed as meaningless Latin words. Unicode text is indexed as Gurmukhi and can be found by people searching in Punjabi.