How to type Urdu on Windows and use your office software in Urdu
Writing Urdu on a Windows computer takes three things: the Urdu keyboard, a Nastaliq font, and paragraphs set to run right to left. Seeing the programs themselves in Urdu is a separate step, and how far it goes depends on the program. Here is how to set up each part.
9 October 2026 · 6 min read
Add the Urdu keyboard
In Windows 11 open Settings → Time & language → Language & region and choose Add a language. Pick Urdu and install it. You can leave the display language as it is: adding the language is enough to get its keyboard. In Windows 10 the same page is under Settings → Time & Language → Language.
Windows+Space switches between your keyboards, and the short name in the corner of the taskbar shows which one is on. Alt+Shift does the same on many computers.
The Urdu keyboard that comes with Windows places the letters by its own arrangement, which takes some learning if you are used to an English keyboard. Phonetic layouts put each letter on the English key that sounds like it, so ب is on B and س is on S. Several are free to download, and Windows accepts them like any other keyboard. The on-screen keyboard (search for On-Screen Keyboard in the Start menu) shows where each letter is while you learn.
Get a Nastaliq font
Urdu is usually written in Nastaliq, the sloping style where letters hang from the line and stack diagonally. Most general Arabic fonts are in the upright Naskh style instead, which Urdu readers can read but which looks like another language’s printing.
Windows includes a font called Urdu Typesetting. Noto Nastaliq Urdu is free from Google Fonts, under a licence that lets you share it and embed it. Jameel Noori Nastaleeq is free too and very widely used in Pakistan. Install a font by right-clicking the file and choosing Install.
Nastaliq is tall. Give it more line spacing than English (1.5 lines or more), or the dots of one line touch the next. If you send a document to someone, either check they have the same font or send a PDF, which carries the font with it.
Set the paragraph to right to left
An Urdu paragraph has to be set to read from the right, which is different from aligning it to the right. Without that, a full stop at the end of a sentence appears at the wrong end of the line. Our guide to writing right to left goes through the setting in Word, LibreOffice and Google Docs.
Numbers can be written with the digits used in English or with Urdu’s own digits (۰ ۱ ۲ ۳). Both are common in Pakistan. Either way a number reads left to right inside the sentence, which is correct.
Seeing the programs themselves in Urdu
Windows can show its own menus and settings in Urdu: in the same Language & region page, choose Urdu as the Windows display language and sign out and back in. Programs that follow the Windows language then follow it too.
Microsoft Office has its own language settings, under File → Options → Language. For a language the installation does not include, Microsoft offers a free Language Accessory Pack to download, and Urdu is among them. How much of Office it translates varies from language to language, so some menus may stay in English.
In other programs, look for a language setting in their options or preferences. A program translated by volunteers can be complete in one release and partly in English in another, so it is worth checking the version you have.
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Where our own software comes into this
Since version 1.38.0, Rutba Office has Urdu as well as English in the app menu’s Language section, and since 1.40.0 and 1.42.0 Arabic and Hindi too. The ribbons, menus, dialogs and status bars are in Urdu, and the whole window is mirrored so the ribbon reads from the right. Since 1.39.0 the messages the engines give, such as a wrong password, are in Urdu too. Each document keeps the direction its own file gives it. The Urdu was drafted by machine against a glossary of the suite’s terms and is waiting for a native speaker’s review, and the installer is still in English.
Related
How to write right to left in Word, LibreOffice and Google Docs
Arabic, Urdu, Hebrew and Persian need more than text aligned to the right. The paragraph itself has to run from the right, or punctuation jumps to the wrong end of the line and mixed text comes out in the wrong order. Here is how to set it up in each of the common word processors.
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