The same appearance, different meaning
A legacy font treats character codes as positions in a custom glyph chart. Unicode stores actual Kannada characters and asks the shaping engine and font to render them correctly.
That is why visual inspection alone cannot confirm whether a document is Unicode. A useful test is to copy a Kannada word, switch to a known Unicode font, and verify that it remains Kannada.
Where Unicode wins
Unicode supports durable digital publishing rather than one-machine typesetting.
- Google and on-site search can index words.
- Databases can sort and compare Kannada correctly.
- Text can be selected, copied, and shared without the source font.
- Browsers can use fallback fonts when a preferred font is unavailable.
- Accessibility and language tools receive meaningful characters.
When conversion is needed
Old DTP archives, government documents, books, and newspaper layouts may contain legacy Nudi data. Converting the text and using a Unicode-compliant version of the design keeps both the content and its typographic character useful.