Mangal is Microsoft's Unicode Devanagari font, bundled with Windows since XP. If you're on Windows 8.1 or earlier you already have it; on Windows 10 or 11 you may need to enable it. If yours is missing, Windows can install it for you without any download. Mac and Linux users should use Noto Sans Devanagari instead.
Most guides about Mangal open by asking you to download a zip file. You probably don't need to. Mangal has shipped with Windows for over twenty years. Before clicking any download button, spend thirty seconds checking whether it's already in your font library.
Open Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or anything with a font dropdown. Click the font field and type "Mangal." If it appears in the list, you're done.
Open Settings → Personalization → Fonts and search "Mangal." If Mangal.ttf and MangalB.ttf both appear, you have the regular and bold weights installed.
If it's not there, the next section covers how to add it.
Mangal is an OpenType Unicode font for the Devanagari script, developed by Microsoft and designed by Raghunath Joshi. It's the default font for typing Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, and Nepali on Windows.
Microsoft shipped Mangal by default through Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1. On Windows 10 and 11 it's still provided by Microsoft but installs on demand as part of Hindi language support, so a clean English-only install often won't have it. Adding it takes about a minute and doesn't require a download from anywhere else. It also installs with Microsoft Office.
The font comes as two files: Mangal.ttf for regular weight and MangalB.ttf for bold. Both use TrueType outlines and store Devanagari at proper Unicode code points rather than through a custom encoding scheme.
That last point is the one that matters, and it's what separates Mangal from the legacy fonts most Hindi documents were built in.
Worth clearing up, because the two get conflated constantly.
Unicode is the standard: the agreement about which number represents which character. Mangal is one font that draws those characters. Noto Sans Devanagari, Devanagari MT, and Nirmala UI all store text identically; they just draw it differently.
The practical implication: for displaying Hindi, any Unicode Devanagari font works. Mangal specifically matters when software or an examination requires that exact font.
भारत सरकार के नियमों का पालन करना आवश्यक है।
Preview shown in Noto Sans Devanagari. Mangal renders the same Unicode text with its own letterforms, no font-specific keyboard mapping needed.
Direct file download, regular weight, © Microsoft Corporation. Need bold too, or want Hindi typing set up automatically? Use Windows Optional Features below.
Some Windows installations, particularly clean installs without regional language packs, don't include Mangal. Two ways to add it.
Windows key + I)Windows fetches the package directly from Microsoft. Mangal appears in your font list automatically once it finishes. This is the better route because it also gives you the Hindi input options you'll need in order to actually type, installing the font alone doesn't do that.
Need the bold weight? Windows Optional Features (Option A) installs both automatically.
Word and Excel in particular won't show a newly installed font until they restart.
Mangal is a Windows font. It can sometimes be installed manually on macOS or Linux, but it isn't distributed for those platforms and rendering is inconsistent across applications. Use a native alternative instead. On macOS, Devanagari MT comes pre-installed; for something closer to Mangal visually, Noto Sans Devanagari is open-source via Google Fonts. On Linux, install Noto Sans Devanagari through your package manager, on Ubuntu-based systems: sudo apt install fonts-noto-devanagari.
The difference is encoding, and everything else follows from it.
Kruti Dev is a legacy font. It produces Devanagari-looking output by remapping Latin character slots, so the text stored in the file is Latin characters, not Hindi. Send a Kruti Dev document to someone without that font and they see garbled Latin gibberish.
Mangal stores each Devanagari character at its proper Unicode code point. The text displays correctly on any device with Unicode rendering, which is effectively every modern operating system, browser, and phone.
| Kruti Dev | Mangal | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Legacy font | Unicode font |
| Text stored as | Latin characters | Hindi characters |
| Works without the font | No | Yes |
| Searchable by Google | No | Yes |
| Default keyboard | Remington | InScript |
| Use it for | Legacy office documents | Everything current |
The practical consequence: Kruti Dev documents are hard to share, search, or publish on the web. Mangal documents are portable and searchable.
If you have old documents in Kruti Dev, our KrutiDev to Unicode converter turns that legacy text into clean Unicode without retyping anything. You can also convert KrutiDev directly to Mangal if that's the specific pair you're working with.
Installing the font solves display. Typing Hindi needs a second step, an input method.
InScript is the keyboard layout approved by the Government of India for Indian languages. It maps Devanagari to a standard QWERTY keyboard and works with any Unicode font, Mangal included.
To enable it on Windows:
Windows key + Spacebar to switch between English and HindiRemington GAIL and Remington CBI are the alternatives. They mirror the key positions of mechanical Hindi typewriters, which makes them familiar to anyone who learned Hindi typing before Unicode, and they're what Kruti Dev users already know. If you've typed in Kruti Dev for years, Remington will feel natural and InScript will not.
Government typing examinations in India generally require Unicode Hindi, and Mangal is the font most commonly specified.
The reason is consistency. Unicode text can be stored in government databases, searched, printed, and moved between systems without depending on a particular font being installed. Legacy font text breaks the moment it passes through a system that doesn't have that exact font, which is precisely the failure mode Unicode was designed to eliminate.
Candidates typically practise on InScript, since that's the default input method paired with Mangal. You can practise on our Hindi typing test to build speed on that layout before exam day.
Font and layout specifications vary between boards and change between recruitment cycles, so the notification for your specific exam is the only reliable source.
Boxes or squares instead of Hindi text. Called "tofu" in typography. It means the application can't find a font capable of rendering those characters, the text itself is fine. Install Mangal or Noto Sans Devanagari and restart the application.
Worth distinguishing: boxes mean a missing Unicode font. Text showing as scrambled Latin letters means a missing legacy font, which is a different problem with a different fix.
Conjuncts or matras rendering wrong. Devanagari conjuncts combine two or more characters into a single glyph, and that depends on the rendering engine. Older applications without proper OpenType shaping support handle them badly. If a document looks correct on one machine and wrong on another, the application version is usually the culprit rather than the font.
Still typing in English after installing Mangal. The most common confusion. Mangal is a display font, it doesn't change what your keyboard produces. You need a Hindi input method enabled and switched to (Windows key + Spacebar) before Hindi characters appear.
Mangal is correct for anything new. But there are cases where you need to go the other direction:
For those, our Unicode to KrutiDev converter handles the reverse conversion, including Mangal input. If your source text is specifically in Mangal, our Mangal to KrutiDev converter is built for exactly that pair.
Yes. Mangal is distributed by Microsoft without charge. It ships with Windows and can be added through Windows Optional Features at no cost.
Probably, if you're on Windows. Open any font dropdown and type "Mangal", if it appears, it's installed. It has shipped with every Windows release since XP.
You don't need to. Android and iOS render Unicode Devanagari through their own system fonts, so documents created in Mangal display correctly on modern smartphones without installing anything.
No. Unicode is the character standard; Mangal is one font that displays it. Noto Sans Devanagari, Devanagari MT, and Nirmala UI store text identically. Mangal matters specifically when software or an exam requires that exact font.
They aren't different fonts. Mangal is one font. InScript and Remington GAIL are keyboard layouts, they determine which physical keys produce which characters. InScript is the government standard; Remington mirrors older typewriter key positions.
Usually the application, not the font. Older software without full OpenType shaping support renders conjuncts differently. If consistency matters, exam practice especially, work in the same application version you'll be assessed in.
Technically yes, but it's a system font and isn't normally embedded. For Hindi web content, Noto Sans Devanagari via Google Fonts is the standard choice because it loads reliably in any browser without the visitor needing it installed.