Locating Sindhi's Extra Letters on the Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard above has six rows. The top row is numbers and punctuation. The letters that don't exist on a standard Urdu or Arabic keyboard are spread across the other five — so if you're hunting for a specific one, here's exactly where to look instead of scanning the whole layout:
| Row | Letters not shared with Urdu or Arabic |
|---|---|
| 2nd row | ٿ، ڌ |
| 3rd row | ڊ، ڪ، ڙ |
| 4th row | ڍ، ڃ، ڀ، ڻ |
| 5th row | ک، ڦ |
| 6th row | ٺ، ٽ، ٻ، ڏ، ڐ، ڑ، ڒ |
If a word you're typing needs one of these and it isn't where you expect, it's almost always in one of these five rows — never mixed into the numbers or punctuation row.
The Two Joining Keys: ZWNJ and ZWJ
The last row of the keyboard has two keys most Sindhi typing tools leave out entirely: ZWNJ (Zero Width Non-Joiner) and ZWJ (Zero Width Joiner). Neither inserts a visible character — both change how the letters next to them connect.
ZWNJ stops two letters from merging into a single connected shape, which matters in Sindhi compound words where letters would otherwise join into a form that changes how the word reads. ZWJ does the reverse — it forces a connection between two letters that wouldn't normally join, occasionally needed for specific loanwords and names.
Most Perso-Arabic keyboards online include only one of these, if either. This one includes both, placed at the end of the last row next to the Space key so they're easy to reach mid-sentence.
When a Letter Shows Up as a Box After Pasting
Every letter this keyboard produces is a standard Unicode character. If one displays as a hollow box (▯) after you paste it somewhere, the keyboard isn't the problem — the destination app or your system font simply doesn't include Sindhi coverage. This shows up most often in older versions of Microsoft Word and in some Android keyboards' built-in preview fonts.
The fix is font-side, not text-side: install a font with full Sindhi coverage, such as Jameel Noori Nastaleeq or Mehr Nastaleeq, and apply it to the pasted text. The characters are already correct — they just need a font capable of drawing them.
Pasting Into Specific Programs
Google Docs, Microsoft Word (2016 or later), WhatsApp, and Facebook all accept this keyboard's output with no extra steps — copy and paste directly. Desktop publishing software needs one extra step: in Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress, paste into a text frame set to right-to-left and apply a Sindhi-capable font. The software's default Latin font will otherwise show boxes in place of the Sindhi-specific letters, even though the underlying text is already correct.