How to Type Gujarati in Microsoft Office

Many of my readers come to this site wanting to know how to type Gujarati in Microsoft Office. In general, there is confusion about Microsoft Office being a "different" application in comparison to other applications such as Notepad or WordPad. I created this page to clear up the confusion and guide readers on how to get started typing Gujarati in Microsoft Office applications.

Key summary points covered on this page:

  • Microsoft Office applications are similar to other applications that support Unicode fonts.
  • There is no difference in how one types Gujarati in Micrsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. as one would type Gujarati in Notepad, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Windows Explorer.
  • Typing Gujarati in Unicode is supported at the Operating System level; hence, one simply needs to change the language to Gujarati in the language bar (and select a keyboard layout of choice) to type in Microsoft Word, just like you would type Gujarati in Notepad.
  • Microsoft Office uses the same Unicode font for Gujarati that other applications use: Shruti.
  • In addition to Shruti, one can also use Arial Unicode MS or any other Gujarati Unicode font to type Gujarati in Microsoft Word.
  • There are NO special Gujarati Unicode fonts for Microsoft Office; the same fonts used by other applications can be used in Microsoft Office as long as they are supported by Windows.

How to Type Gujarati in Microsoft Office

Typing Gujarati in Microsoft Office using Unicode fonts, such as Shruti, is the same as typing Gujarati in any other program, such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Notepad, etc. You simply need to install Gujarati Language support in Windows, switch the language to Gujarati in the language bar, select your preferred keyboard layout, and start typing. You may need learn a few rules on how to type Gujarati with Unicode fonts if you don't know how.

There are no special procedures to type Gujarati in Microsoft Office. There are no special fonts you need to install, other than Shruti or Arial Unicode MS. The rules for typing Gujarati are the same for all programs. The reason is Unicode is supported by the Operating System, not the individual application.

Below are some images that show Gujarati being typed in Windows 7 Start menu search box, Notepad, and Microsoft Office Word. You can see that all 3 use the Shruti font. The rules of typing are the same for all three. In all cases, the language is changed in the Operating System - Windows XP, Vista, or 7.



What Gujarati Fonts Does Microsoft Office Use?

Microsoft Office does not use any special fonts for typing Gujarati. As long as a Gujarati font is a Unicode font and compatible with Windows, than you can use it in Microsoft Office. Many Linux fonts can be used with Microsoft Office. I have collected some Gujarati Unicode fonts that are compatible with Microsoft Office. The can be found here: Download Gujarati Unicode Fonts for Microsoft Office.

If you are using non-Unicode fonts, then you need to refer to its character map. Each non-Unicode font has their own map and they follow no consistency in keyboard mapping.