Issue 1: Text Appears as English Gibberish (Nudi/Baraha ASCII Mismatch)
If you open a document and see strange English sequences like 'PÀ£ÀßqÀ', your document was written in legacy ASCII font encoding (such as Nudi 01 e, Shree Lipi, or Baraha) without Unicode standards.
When the specific legacy TTF font is missing on your computer, Windows falls back to Arial or Times New Roman, displaying the raw ASCII keyboard codes.
- The permanent fix: Convert the text to standard Unicode using Lipi's free Nudi ↔ Unicode converter.
- Unicode text never breaks even if the user does not have your specific font installed.
Issue 2: Square Boxes (Tofu) or Missing Glyphs
A small rectangle (known in typography as 'tofu') indicates that the currently active font lacks glyph outlines for those specific Unicode code points.
To resolve this, select the text and switch to a comprehensive Unicode font such as Noto Sans Kannada or Tunga, which contains complete coverage for all Kannada consonants, dependent vowels, and archaic marks.
Issue 3: Broken Ottakshara (Conjuncts) in Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator
In Adobe graphic software, Kannada subscript letters (vattu) may appear side-by-side instead of stacking beneath the consonant.
This occurs when the Adobe World-Ready Composer is turned off by default.
- In Photoshop: Go to Preferences > Type > select 'World-Ready Layout' (or 'Middle Eastern and South Asian').
- Restart Photoshop and create a new text layer.
- Your conjuncts and virama signs will now stack and shape correctly.
Issue 4: Fonts Installed but Not Appearing in Word Font Picker
In Windows 10 and 11, installing fonts per-user can sometimes hide them from older 32-bit desktop software.
Right-click your downloaded .ttf file and choose 'Show more options', then click 'Install for all users'. This installs the typeface into C:\Windows\Fonts with full administrative permissions.