Text in non-Latin scripts
If your text is not displaying correctly
Nothing on your side fixes this
No font, keyboard, encoding or browser setting will change it. This is not a problem with your device or with how you typed the text. It is a limitation of the way SimpleDraw draws text onto the drawing canvas.
Please check the problem is one that we know about
Further down in this page, you'll find a list of all the scripts that we know have display issues. If the issue that you are seeing is not in this list, please let us know, and we will look into it.
Let us know that this is affecting you
Ongoing development of SimpleDraw is driven by the needs of our community of users. If we know that a problem with a particular script is affecting active users of the product, this helps us to prioritize further improvements on the range of scripts that we display correctly. You can contact us on our Discord server or email us at translation@simpledraw.app.
Scripts that display correctly
We believe that all scripts in this list should be rendered correctly by SimpleDraw.
- Latin (including Vietnamese, Turkish, Polish and Romanian)
- Cyrillic
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Arabic
- Chinese
- Japanese
- Korean
- Thai
- Lao
- Tibetan
- Armenian
- Georgian
- Ethiopic
- Cherokee
- Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics
- Vai
- Yi
- Osage
- Bamum
- Bopomofo
- Lisu
- Ol Chiki
- Tifinagh
- Coptic
- Kayah Li
- Tai Le
- Tai Tham
- New Tai Lue
- Tai Viet
- Wancho
- Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong
- Miao
- Thaana
- N'Ko
- Mandaic
- Saurashtra
- Limbu
- Meetei Mayek
- Batak
- Buginese
- Tagalog (Baybayin)
- Syloti Nagri
Traditional Mongolian also displays correctly, but along a horizontal line. For vertical text, set the text angle to -90°. If the text has more than one line, you'll need to enter the lines in reverse order, so that the columns read left to right.
Scripts that do not display correctly
22 scripts are affected, and not all in the same way. Jump to yours:
Devanagari Tamil Kannada Bengali Telugu Malayalam Gujarati Gurmukhi Odia Sinhala Khmer Burmese Sundanese Cham Chakma Lepcha Newa Adlam Hanifi Rohingya Syriac Javanese Balinese
If your script is not on this list, but your text still does not look right, please let us know and we'll look into it.
Why this happens
Turning a sequence of characters into a line of readable text is not always as straightforward as drawing one shape per character. In many writing systems the shapes change depending on their neighbours, letters combine into new shapes, marks attach above and below, some marks are stored after a letter but drawn before it, and some scripts run right-to-left or top-to-bottom. The software that works all of this out is called a text shaping engine, and it is a large and specialised piece of engineering.
Your browser has a built-in text shaping engine, which is why this page displays correctly. SimpleDraw renders drawings using a technology called WebGL, which unfortunately means that it can't make use of your browser's built-in shaping engine. We use an open-source text shaping engine that is compatible with WebGL. It handles most scripts well, but it does fall short on some scripts, as documented on this page.
If SimpleDraw doesn't handle your script, we are really sorry about this limitation. It is not impossible to fix this, but it potentially requires a significant amount of additional work. If you let us know how this limitation is affecting you, this can help us to prioritize further work in this area.
Vowel signs and marks in the wrong place
In these scripts a vowel sign is stored after its consonant but has to be drawn before, above or around it, and consonants combine into stacked or joined shapes. SimpleDraw draws the characters in the order they are stored, so vowel signs land on the wrong side of a letter, split vowels come apart, stacked clusters spread out, and some marks disappear altogether. Words built only from letters and following vowel signs come out perfectly — which is why the problem often shows up in one label and not the next.
Devanagari
Used for: Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit, Konkani, Maithili, Bhojpuri
As it should look
हिन्दी
“Hindi”
As SimpleDraw draws it
हन्दी
The i-vowel sign is dropped entirely. In a second word the same sign is not moved in front of its consonant and lands after the cluster instead. Conjuncts themselves are formed correctly, so a word with no pre-base vowel is drawn perfectly.
Also affected
- शिक्षा “education” — drawn as शक्षिा
These come out correctly
- भारत “India”
Tamil
Used for: Tamil
As it should look
மொழி
“language”
As SimpleDraw draws it
ம·ொழி
The two-part o-vowel is not composed around its consonant, and a stray dot is left behind. A word with no split vowel is drawn correctly.
Also affected
- கொடி “flag” — drawn as க·ொடி
These come out correctly
- தமிழ் “Tamil”
Kannada
Used for: Kannada
As it should look
ಕನ್ನಡ
“Kannada”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The conjunct is not stacked — the two consonants sit side by side instead of one beneath the other. In a second word the i-vowel sign is misplaced.
Also affected
- ದಿನ “day” — drawn as
Bengali
Used for: Bengali, Assamese
As it should look
দেশ
“country”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The e-vowel sign belongs in front of its consonant and is drawn after it.
Telugu
Used for: Telugu
As it should look
కోడి
“hen”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The two-part o-vowel is garbled and the glyphs overlap each other illegibly.
Malayalam
Used for: Malayalam
As it should look
കേരളം
“Kerala”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The e-vowel sign is drawn after its consonant instead of in front of it. Words without a pre-base vowel are drawn correctly.
Also affected
- സ്നേഹം “love” — drawn as
These come out correctly
- മരം “tree”
Gujarati
Used for: Gujarati
As it should look
દિવસ
“day”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The i-vowel sign is drawn after its consonant instead of before it.
Gurmukhi
Used for: Punjabi
As it should look
ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
“Punjabi”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The tippi nasal mark is placed wrongly, and i-vowel signs are drawn after their consonant rather than before it.
Odia
Used for: Odia
As it should look
ଦେଶ
“country”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The e-vowel sign belongs in front of its consonant and is drawn after it.
Sinhala
Used for: Sinhala
As it should look
කොළඹ
“Colombo”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The two halves of the split o-vowel become detached from the consonant they belong to.
Sinhala is clearly drawn differently from the way the browser draws it, but we did not pin down the exact rule that fails. It is listed here because the safe direction, when we are unsure, is to tell you.
Khmer
Used for: Khmer
As it should look
ខ្មែរ
“Khmer”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The coeng subscript consonant is not stacked beneath its base letter, and vowels that belong in front of a consonant are drawn in the wrong order.
Burmese
Used for: Burmese, and also written for Shan, Mon and Karen
As it should look
မြန်မာ
“Myanmar”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The medial-ra cluster comes apart completely.
Sundanese
Used for: Sundanese
As it should look
ᮞᮦᮊᮧᮜᮂ
“sekolah”, school
As SimpleDraw draws it
The panéléng vowel sign, which belongs in front of its consonant, lands inside the word instead. A word with only following vowel signs is drawn correctly.
These come out correctly
- ᮘᮞ ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ “Basa Sunda”, the Sundanese language
Cham
Used for: Cham
As it should look
ꨚꨰꩌ
a test string using the ai vowel sign
As SimpleDraw draws it
The ai vowel sign, which belongs in front of its consonant, is drawn in the wrong position. A word with only following vowel signs is correct.
These come out correctly
- ꨌꩌ “Cham”
Chakma
Used for: Chakma
As it should look
𑄦𑄬𑄘𑄬
a test string using the e vowel sign
As SimpleDraw draws it
Two separate faults. Virama stacks are not formed — the virama is drawn as a loose mark and the cluster spreads out — and the e-vowel sign, which belongs in front of its consonant, is moved to the end of the word.
Lepcha
Used for: Lepcha
As it should look
ᰛᰩᰵ
“Róng”, the Lepcha name for the language
As SimpleDraw draws it
Vowel signs and final marks are placed on the wrong side of the letter they belong to.
Both Lepcha words we tested came out differently from the browser's version, but we did not work out the exact rule that fails.
Newa
Used for: Nepal Bhasa (Newari)
As it should look
𑐣𑐾𑐥𑐵𑐮
“Nepal”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The e-vowel sign is not moved in front of its consonant, and virama stacks are not formed.
The word reads backwards
These scripts are written right to left, and SimpleDraw lays them out left to right, so the whole word is reversed. The letter shapes themselves are correct. Both scripts are encoded in a part of Unicode that the renderer's direction pass does not recognise as right-to-left; other right-to-left scripts, including Arabic, Hebrew, Thaana, N'Ko, Syriac and Mandaic, are laid out in the correct direction.
Adlam
Used for: Fula (Pular, Pulaar, Fulfulde)
As it should look
𞤀𞤣𞤤𞤢𞤥
“Adlam”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The whole word is drawn left to right, so it reads backwards. The letters themselves are shaped correctly — it is only the order that is wrong.
Hanifi Rohingya
Used for: Rohingya
As it should look
𐴌𐴟𐴇𐴝𐴚𐴒𐴙𐴝
“Rohingya”
As SimpleDraw draws it
The whole word is drawn left to right, so it reads backwards.
Letters that should join are broken apart
In a cursive script, neighbouring letters connect into a continuous run. SimpleDraw does not always make the connection, so a word breaks into disconnected pieces.
Syriac
Used for: Syriac, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo
As it should look
ܣܘܪܝܝܐ
“Suryaya”, Syriac
As SimpleDraw draws it
Letters that should join into one connected run break into disconnected pieces. Three of the four words we tested broke; one joined correctly. The text does at least run in the correct direction.
Also affected
- ܐܠܗܐ “God” — drawn as
- ܒܝܬܐ “house” — drawn as
These come out correctly
- ܠܫܢܐ “language”
The break is unmistakable, but we did not establish which joining forms fail, so we can describe the symptom and not the rule.
Letters given the wrong width
For these two scripts SimpleDraw computes wildly wrong widths for individual letters — many times too wide. Words are stretched across thousands of pixels, so most of the text can end up outside the visible area.
Javanese
Used for: Javanese
As it should look
ꦱꦼꦏꦺꦴꦭꦃ
“sekolah”, school
As SimpleDraw draws it
Letters are given widths several times too large, and the error depends on which letters sit next to each other. A word was laid out about 1,700 pixels wide where roughly 400 was expected, so what appears on screen is a couple of letters separated by an enormous gap, with the rest of the word off the edge.
Balinese
Used for: Balinese
As it should look
ᬲᭂᬓᭀᬮᬄ
“sekolah”, school
As SimpleDraw draws it
The same fault as Javanese, and worse. At a size where a Latin letter is about 64 pixels wide, single Balinese letters were laid out 1,133 and 2,764 pixels wide.
A note on the words above
Some of the words on this page were chosen to demonstrate a particular feature of a script rather than to be everyday vocabulary, and a few are not words at all. We are not experts in all of these languages, if a description of your script is wrong, or if you have any suggestions, please contact us at translation@simpledraw.app.
Talk to us about it
If you want to push us to do better on this, the most useful thing you can do is tell us what "better" would need to look like for your work.
- Join our Discord server — the fastest way to reach us and to see what is being worked on. You can also find SimpleDraw on our contact page, which lists every channel we are on.
- Email translation@simpledraw.app — no account needed, and no English needed either.
If your drawing used to look different
SimpleDraw changed the font it draws text with, so text in existing drawings may be slightly wider than it was. See our post about the change, and if it causes you any problems, please let us know.