Tibetan Fonts
Contents |
About Tibetan fonts
Fonts that are in TrueType (.ttf) format can be used on any operating system. Just drop them into your fonts folder.
Freely available Unicode fonts
Chris Fynn's Tibetan Fonts
DDC Uchen
DDC Uchen, a font designed by Chris Fynn for the Dzongkha Development Commission, can be downloaded from:
Jomolhari
Jomolhari, a font by Chris Fynn, can be downloaded from:
Adobe InDesign CS3 & CS4
Note: There is now a special version of this font called Jomolhari ID available which was designed to work only in Adobe's in Adobe's InDesign (CS3 & CS4) on both Windows and Mac. InDesign has its own OpenType shaping engine which currently does not have specific support for Tibetan script. The font works by using lookups under "generic" OpenType features which are applied by InDesign's shaping engine ~ rather than the features specified for Tibetan which InDesign's shaping engine does not apply. This also enables the font to work in a number of Macintosh applications.
Adobe InDesign CS5
This has been solved for InDesign CS5: See How to prepare InDesign CS5 for Tibetan script.
CTRC: Qomolangma
The Central Tibetan Relief Committee (CTRC) has created a number of free dbu can and dbu med fonts.
Their new Qomolangma fonts can be downloaded from:
The older subset of CTRC-fonts can still be downloaded from the Tibetan font overview of the Virginia University, however the Qomolangma set is newer.
Lobsang Monlam fonts
Lobsang Monlam, a monk from Sera Mey monastery in southern India, has created a large set of beautiful Tibetan fonts. Version 3 is all Unicode; previous versions are not.
Download the Monlam fonts at
The Monlam package also contains an input keyboard and other software as well as the font. Read about installing the full Monlam package at
Read more about Lobsang Monlam and the fonts at
Sambhota: TsugRing and YigChung
Sambota Tibetan Schools Society Dharamshala has created two new Unicode fonts as of August 2010: Tibetan TsugRing (OTF) and Tibetan Sambhota Yigchung (TTF).
They can be downloaded from
and there are samples there, as well as information about compatibility and keyboards.
TCC: Tibetan Machine Uni
The fonts of Tibetan Computer Company (TCC) by Tony Duff are renowned for being some of the most beautiful, high-quality Tibetan fonts available. They are all in dbu can style; TCC are not planning to producedbu med fonts "until the Windows operating system can support them properly."
TCC "typefaces are available in two encoding formats: non-unicode and unicode. We continue to support our own, non-unicode format for Tibetan because, unfortunately, the Tibetan Unicode standard does not support many of the specialized characters needed for serious work in the Tibetan language."
Download the freely available TCC Tibetan Machine Uni at:
See below for the commercially available TCC Unicode fonts (Calligraphic, Classic and Chogyal).
THDL: Tibetan Machine Uni
The Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library (THDL) provides a Unicode Tibetan Machine Uni font.
This font can be downloaded from:
Commercial Unicode fonts
Sambhota font for Unicode
Xenotype fonts
Microsoft Himalaya
This font is part of the Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system.
Since it is a .ttf (TrueType) font it can be used on any OS (such as Ubuntu Linux, MacOSX). Just drop it into the fonts folder like any font.
Tibetan Computer Company fonts
The fonts of Tibetan Computer Company (TCC) by Tony Duff are renowned for being some of the most beautiful, high-quality Tibetan fonts available. They are all in dbu can style; TCC are not planning to producedbu med fonts "until the Windows operating system can support them properly."
TCC "typefaces are available in two encoding formats: non-unicode and unicode. We continue to support our own, non-unicode format for Tibetan because, unfortunately, the Tibetan Unicode standard does not support many of the specialized characters needed for serious work in the Tibetan language."
The TTCC fonts Tibetan Calligraphic Unicode, Tibetan Classic Unicode and Tibetan Chogyal Unicode can be purchased at:
See above for the freely available Tibetan Machine Unicode font.
Mac OS-X Unicode fonts
| Why are Mac Unicode fonts in a different section? | |
| Unfortunately both Mac OS-X 10.5 and 10.6 (which supports Tibetan) and Adobe's programs support a different set of OpenType features which are required to correctly render Tibetan glyphs. So far Chris Fynn's Jomolhari ID font is the only publicly available font that supports all platforms. The other fonts listed above run only with Windows and Linux, and the Mac fonts below run only with Mac OS-X. See Platform Independent Tibetan Unicode Fonts for the internal encoding differences. |
Mac OS-X includes two Tibetan fonts since version 10.5.x :
- Kailasa
- Kokonor
Freely available is Chris Fynn's
- Jomolhari ID
- [www.dzongkha.gov.bt/IT/download/fonts/DDC_Uchen.ttf DDC Uchen]
The company XenoTypeTech offers different Tibetan fonts (both dbu can and dbu med) for different versions of Mac OS-X:
Legacy fonts (non-Unicode)
| Why switch to Unicode? | |
| There still exists quite a number of high quality Tibetan fonts which do not support the Unicode standard. Since they rely on proprietary encoding, they often only work in a well-defined and closed environment. That makes it difficult to work with standard software: | |
| * For legacy fonts, standard word processors like OpenOffice or Microsoft word do not understand boundaries of Tibetan syllables and might break syllables in wrong places. | |
| * Desktop search engines cannot search Tibetan in legacy encodings. | |
| * It is very difficult to change fonts, special conversion software is needed. | |
| * Files might not be readable in the future because they use proprietary encoding. |
An incomplete list of legacy fonts (free downloads):
- LTibetan http://udp.leighb.com/robillard.exe
- Tibetan Machine http://www.tibet.dk/tcc/download.htm
For information on how to convert documents that use legacy fonts into standard Unicode, see:
If you are a font developer, you can convert legacy fonts into Unicode fonts following the information at:
Internal Links
- Configuring Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 or 2010 for Tibetan script
- Creation of Platform Independent Tibetan Unicode Fonts
- Formatting rules for Tibetan text - This article explains the basic rules for formatting Tibetan texts, and shows how to use OpenOffice to create properly formatted Tibetan documents.
- How to edit Tibetan texts
- How to prepare InDesign CS5 for Tibetan script
- How to configure Web browsers for correct display of Tibetan script
- Tibetan Formatting OpenOffice.org Extension - The extension allows left/right justification of Tibetan text including automatic Rinchen Spungs Shad handling.
- What is Unicode
External Links
- Chris Fynn's Jomolhari font collection
- Central Tibetan Relief Committee download page
- Lobsang Monlam font
- Sambhota fonts download page
- Tibetan font overview of the Virginia University
