Typing Hindi efficiently means learning where each Devanagari character lives on the keyboard. This reference shows the InScript layout — the Bureau of Indian Standards standard used across Windows, macOS, Linux and Android — and a common phonetic mapping for people who prefer to type roman spellings.
How it works
InScript assigns a fixed Devanagari character to each physical key, independent of how that key looks in QWERTY. The design clusters the frequently used vowel signs (matras) on the left hand and the consonants on the right:
- The base plane (no Shift) gives you the most common consonants and the
short matras, plus the virama/halant on the
Dkey. - The Shift plane gives the aspirated consonants (ख, घ, छ, झ…) and the long or independent vowels (आ, ई, ऊ…).
The phonetic option instead shows how a transliteration-style input maps roman keys to the nearest Hindi sound — useful for beginners, though such layouts are not standardised and vary between apps.
Typing conjuncts
To produce a conjunct (yuktakshar) such as क्ष, type the first consonant,
then the virama key (D → ्), then the second consonant. The text renderer
joins them. For example क + ् + ष renders as क्ष.
Notes
- This chart is for reference only; switch your OS input method to InScript or a phonetic layout to actually type Hindi.
- Once the matra-left / consonant-right logic clicks, InScript is much faster than phonetic typing because every key is deterministic.