DevLys 010 Font: How to Use It in Word and Excel

What DevLys 010 is

DevLys 010 is a legacy, non-Unicode Hindi font. It does not contain Unicode Hindi letters. Instead it draws Hindi shapes in place of the ordinary characters of a keyboard: the letter d is drawn as क, k as the ा matra, and so on. A document typed in DevLys therefore contains text such as lkekU; ç'kklu foHkkx, which only reads as सामान्य प्रशासन विभाग while DevLys 010 is the selected font.

DevLys 010 uses the same character encoding as Kruti Dev 010 (see the evidence on our home page), so text, converters and the keyboard chart work for both.

Installing the font

We don’t provide the font file. Ask the office, department or exam that requires it for the approved copy, and only install fonts from a source you trust. Microsoft’s steps for installing a font for Office are:

1. Windows 10 or 11: find the font file (usually .ttf; open the .zip first if it came in one), double-click it and select Install. Close and reopen Word or Excel.
2. Mac: double-click the font file and select Install; it opens in Font Book. The font is then available to Office.

Using DevLys 010 in Word

1. Convert your Hindi with the Unicode to DevLys converter and copy the output.
2. Paste it into Word. It appears as Latin letters.
3. Select the pasted text and choose DevLys 010 in the font box on the Home tab. It now displays as Hindi.
4. Keep English words in an English font such as Calibri or Times New Roman. English letters in the DevLys font turn into Hindi characters.

To type directly in DevLys, select the font first and type using the DevLys / Kruti Dev keyboard chart. Remember that the ि matra is typed before its consonant and the reph (Z) after its syllable.

Using DevLys 010 in Excel

Excel works the same way, cell by cell: paste the converted text, then set the font of those cells to DevLys 010. Formulas and sorting see the underlying Latin characters, so an alphabetical sort of DevLys text sorts by Latin codes, not Hindi order. If you need Hindi sorting or searching, keep a Unicode copy.

Turn off smart quotes before typing DevLys

In DevLys the ' key types half श and " types half ष. Word can automatically replace straight quotes with curly “smart” quotes as you type, which breaks these letters. To switch it off: File → Options → Proofing → AutoCorrect Options → AutoFormat As You Type, then clear “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes” (Microsoft’s instructions). If a document was already typed that way, our DevLys to Unicode converter has an option to undo it.

Sharing DevLys documents

A font works only on the computer where it is installed, so a DevLys document opened elsewhere may show Latin letters or fall back to another font. Your options:

• Send a PDF when the reader only needs to read or print it.
• Embed the font in the Word file: File → Options → Save → “Embed fonts in the file”. Whether this works depends on the font’s embedding permission, which you can check in the Windows Fonts settings (Microsoft’s explanation).
• Convert to Unicode with the DevLys to Unicode converter when the text goes online, into email or to a phone.

Troubleshooting