Urdu Editor Guide: Type Urdu, Open InPage Files and Make a Book PDF Online

For years, writing a book or a long document in Urdu meant installing InPage. Its files only open in InPage, the Urdu you copy out of older versions turns into symbols anywhere else, and it does not run on a Mac, a Chromebook or a phone. Our Urdu tools do the same everyday work in a browser, for free: type Urdu, convert Roman Urdu and English, open your old InPage files, and lay out a book you can print or send to a printer as a PDF^[1].

This guide covers all four tools, then walks through writing a complete book in the Urdu Editor, step by step.

The four Urdu tools

[Urdu Editor](/tools/urdu/urdu-editor) is the main tool: a word processor for Urdu with a phonetic keyboard, Nastaliq fonts, chapters, page sizes, page numbers, footnotes and pictures. It saves PDF, Word and editable files.

Roman Urdu to Urdu converts Urdu written in English letters into Urdu script as you type: "Aap kaise hain?" becomes "آپ کیسے ہیں؟".

English to Urdu Translator translates English paragraphs into natural Urdu with AI.

InPage to Unicode Converter opens InPage (.inp) files without InPage and fixes Urdu that pastes as symbols.

Everything the tools produce is Unicode Urdu: the standard encoding every modern app, website and phone understands, where each Urdu letter has its own code in the Unicode Arabic chart (ک is U+06A9, ی is U+06CC, ہ is U+06C1)^[2]. That is what makes the text searchable, editable in Word and readable on any device.

Typing Urdu: three modes

The Urdu Editor has three typing modes, shown at the top right of the toolbar. Press Ctrl + Space to switch between Urdu and English, as in InPage.

1. اردو: the phonetic keyboard

Each English key types the Urdu letter that sounds like it, following InPage's phonetic layout, so InPage users can type straight away:

• Letters: a ا, b ب, p پ, t ت, j ج, c چ, d د, r ر, z ز, s س, x ش, f ف, q ق, k ک, g گ, l ل, m م, n ن
• و، ہ، ی and friends: w و, o ہ, h ھ (do-chashmi, as in بھ and کھ), i ی, y ے, e ع, v ط, u ء

Shift gives the related letters: T ٹ, D ڈ, R ڑ, S ص, J ض, Z ذ, X ژ, C ث, V ظ, G غ, H ح, K خ, N ں, A آ, U ئ, O ۃ. The اعراب are on Shift too: Y zabar, I zer, P pesh, W shad, Q jazm, B do zabar, E khari zabar. Urdu punctuation comes from the usual keys: the full stop types ۔, the comma ، and the question mark ؟.

On a phone, use your phone's Urdu keyboard, or the on-screen keyboard in the Keyboard panel, which shows the whole layout.

2. Roman → اردو: write Roman Urdu, get Urdu

If you are used to typing Urdu in English letters on WhatsApp, choose Roman → اردو and type normally. Each word turns into Urdu when you press space or a punctuation mark: "Main kal Lahore jaunga" becomes "میں کل لاہور جاؤں گا".

Common words, greetings and many Arabic and Persian words (محنت، صبح، طرف) come from a built-in dictionary. Other words are converted by sound. For the best results:

• Write long vowels clearly: "aa" for ا (kaam), "ee" for ی (teen), "oo" for و (door).
• Use "kh", "gh", "sh", "ch", "th" and "ph" for خ، غ، ش، چ، تھ and پھ.
• Write izafat as "e" between words: Quaid-e-Azam becomes قائدِ اعظم.

To convert a whole block of Roman Urdu at once, paste it into the Roman Urdu panel and click Insert into document. Improve with AI corrects the spellings the rules cannot guess. You can also select Roman text already in your document and click Selection → اردو.

3. English

English mode types English, for a name, a reference or a quotation. For a whole English paragraph inside an Urdu book, click LTR so it reads left to right.

Translating English to Urdu

Open the English → Urdu panel, paste up to 3,000 characters (about 450 words), and click Translate to Urdu. The AI is asked for natural, standard Urdu that keeps the meaning and tone, not a word-for-word rendering. Check the result, then click Insert into document.

You get 5 free AI uses a day, shared by translation, "Improve with AI" and the other AI tools on GenZCoders. Translate a chapter a few paragraphs at a time, and read it through before publishing: machine translation can miss tone and idiom.

Opening InPage files

Click Open in the Urdu Editor and choose an .inp file, or drop it on the InPage to Unicode Converter. The text and paragraphs of InPage 2000, 2002, 2009 and InPage 3 files are converted to Unicode Urdu, including اعراب, Urdu digits, punctuation and honorifics such as ﷺ and ؓ. The file is read in your browser and never uploaded.

Older InPage versions store Urdu in their own encoding, which is why copied text pastes as symbols such as ‚Ç…“¦. Paste that text into the editor and it is converted automatically. InPage 3 already copies Unicode, so its text pastes as normal Urdu.

Fonts, colours, pictures and page layout are not carried over from InPage, so set them again in Page setup. If a file cannot be read, open it in InPage, select all (Ctrl + A), copy, and paste the text instead.

Writing a book, step by step

Step 1: Page setup

Open Page setup in the side panel before you start writing, so line breaks and page counts match the printed book:

• Book / document title: printed at the top of every page.
• Page size: A5 (148 × 210 mm) and 6 × 9 in are the usual book sizes; 5.5 × 8.5 in, B5, A4, US Letter and Legal are there too.
• Margins: Narrow (12 mm), Normal (18 mm) or Wide (25 mm).
• Font and size: 14–18 pt suits a book page in Nastaliq.
• Line spacing: Normal suits most Nastaliq text; choose Relaxed for poetry.
• Page numbers: Urdu digits (۱، ۲، ۳), English digits, or none.
• Start each chapter on a new page, and type numbers as Urdu digits.

The page on screen is exactly as wide as the printed page, and dashed lines show roughly where each printed page ends. The bar under the page shows the word count and the estimated number of pages.

Step 2: Choose a font

Included: Noto Nastaliq Urdu and Gulzar (Nastaliq), and Noto Naskh, Amiri, Lateef and Scheherazade (Naskh). Google's Noto Nastaliq Urdu is a free, open-licence font designed for Urdu's sloping Nastaliq style^[4]. Nastaliq letters join and stack diagonally, so it needs more line spacing than Naskh; the W3C's layout requirements for Arabic-script languages describe how browsers shape and justify this text^[3].

If installed on your computer: Jameel Noori Nastaleeq, Faiz Lahori Nastaleeq, Alvi Nastaleeq and Nafees Nastaleeq. Most InPage users already have one; if it is not installed, the editor uses Noto Nastaliq instead. Word files use Jameel Noori Nastaleeq when the reader has it.

Step 3: Structure the book

Use the second toolbar row:

• باب: chapter heading.
• عنوان and ذیلی عنوان: heading and sub-heading.
• متن: normal text.
• اقتباس: quotation or verse.
• Bold, underline, and alignment: right, centre, justified, left.
• Page break: start a new page anywhere.
• ٭ ٭ ٭: a section divider.
• آیت: select a verse and set it in the Quranic font, Amiri Quran.
• Footnote: numbered notes, collected under حواشی at the end of the book.
• Picture: added inside the document.

The Symbols panel has the honorifics (ﷺ، ؑ، ؓ، ؒ، ؐ)، ﷽, the اعراب and Urdu punctuation. Click one to insert it at the cursor.

Step 4: Find and fix

Press Ctrl + F to open Find & Replace. Replace all fixes a word spelled wrongly throughout the book in one step, which is useful for names and terms after an AI translation.

Step 5: Save your work

The editor saves your document in this browser as you type; nothing is uploaded. That copy disappears if you clear your browser data and does not follow you to another computer, so also save files:

• Save .html: an editable copy you can open here again with Open, with your page settings.
• Word: a .doc file for Microsoft Word, with page size, margins and right-to-left text.
• .txt: plain text.
• Copy: the whole text, to paste elsewhere.

Step 6: Print or save as PDF

Click Print / Save PDF. In the print window:

1. Choose Save as PDF as the destination, or your printer.
2. Keep the paper size you chose in Page setup.
3. Set Margins to Default.
4. Turn Headers and footers off: the editor prints its own book title and page numbers.

The PDF keeps the Nastaliq text, starts each chapter on a new page and numbers the pages in Urdu digits.

Which tool should you use?

• Writing a book, article or document: the Urdu Editor.
• A message or caption you typed in Roman Urdu: Roman Urdu to Urdu.
• An English text you need in Urdu: the English to Urdu Translator, then the Urdu Editor to format it.
• An old .inp file, or Urdu that pastes as symbols: the InPage to Unicode Converter.

Privacy

Your documents stay on your device: typing, conversion and InPage files are all handled in your browser. Text is only sent to our AI provider when you click Translate or Improve with AI, to create that result, and it is not stored.

Start with the Urdu Editor: set the page size, write your first chapter, and save the PDF.