Why making an Urdu PDF is harder than it looks
An English PDF is easy to make: letters sit in a row from left to right, and every program can draw them. Urdu in Nastaliq is one of the most demanding scripts in digital typography. Letters change shape by position, join in long sloping chains, and stack diagonally. Dots and aerab are placed in relation to each other, and the whole line runs right to left, while numbers and English words inside it still run left to right.
When software gets any of this wrong, you see it immediately: letters that do not join, a flat Naskh-style font instead of Nastaliq, words in the wrong order, or brackets facing the wrong way. That is why people still email screenshots of Urdu documents instead of PDFs, which cannot be searched, copied or read by screen readers.
This tool produces a proper PDF:
- Real Nastaliq shaping. Text is shaped with HarfBuzz, the same open-source engine that Chrome, Firefox and Android use, so every ligature, joining form and dot position comes out exactly as the font designer intended.
- Correct bidirectional layout. Urdu runs right to left, while English words and numbers keep their left-to-right order inside the line, following the Unicode bidirectional rules.
- Real, searchable text. Every word carries its Unicode text behind the Nastaliq shapes, so the PDF can be searched, copied and indexed. That also avoids the broken-PDF problems described in our guide on why Urdu text copied from PDFs looks broken.
- Compact files. Each letter shape your text uses is stored once for the whole document, so extra pages add only about 8–10 KB each.
Layout options
| Option | Choices | Tip |
|---|---|---|
| Page size | A4, US Letter, A5 | A4 for Pakistan and the UK; Letter for the US and Canada; A5 for booklets |
| Font | Noto Nastaliq Urdu, Gulzar | Gulzar is bolder and reads well at small sizes; Noto is classical and elegant |
| Text size | 11–30 pt | 14–18 pt for documents, 20 pt and up for notices and posters |
| Line spacing | 1.6–3.0 | Nastaliq needs about 2.0; raise it for text with many aerab |
| Alignment | Right, justified, centred | Justify for letters and articles, centre for poetry and notices |
| Margins | Narrow, normal, wide | Wide margins look better on printed letters and applications |
Each line break in your text starts a new paragraph, and a blank line leaves a gap. Page numbers are added in Urdu digits (۱، ۲، ۳) at the bottom of each page if you leave that option on.
Worked example
Press Try an example to load a short text with a title, two paragraphs and a couplet by Ghalib, including the English word “English” and the number 2026 in an Urdu sentence. With the default settings it produces a one-page A4 PDF of roughly 100 KB. In the PDF:
- the title اردو زبان is centred in a larger size;
- the paragraphs are right-aligned, with “2026” and “English” reading left to right inside the Urdu lines;
- the couplet keeps its two lines exactly as typed;
- the page number at the bottom is ۱.
Common problems and fixes
The text came from InPage and the PDF shows symbols
The text was not Unicode Urdu yet. Convert it first with the InPage to Unicode converter, then paste the result here.
Some letters appear as empty boxes
The text contains characters outside the Urdu font, such as emoji or rare symbols. Remove or replace them. Western digits and English letters are covered by a separate built-in Latin font.
Words look backwards when I copy them out of the PDF
The PDF stores the correct order, but some simple PDF viewers copy right-to-left text backwards. Copy from Adobe Acrobat Reader, Chrome or Edge, or use Fix Broken Urdu Text with “Reverse each line”.
Lines are too long or too crowded
Increase the line spacing or the margins, or switch to justified alignment. For poetry, centre alignment with a larger text size usually looks best.
Who uses this tool
- Students submitting Urdu assignments and applications as PDF.
- Office staff and lawyers preparing letters, notices and affidavits in Urdu.
- Teachers making worksheets and question papers that print correctly anywhere.
- Poets and writers sharing their work as a neat, printable file instead of screenshots.
- Mosques, schools and community groups printing notices and announcements.
Before you make the PDF, run your text through the Urdu Spell Checker. If you typed it in Roman Urdu, convert it first with Roman Urdu to Urdu.
Private by design
The whole PDF is created on your device: shaping, layout and file writing. Your text is never uploaded. The fonts and the shaping engine download once and are reused for the rest of your visit.