Step by step
How to use the bengali keyboard
- 1The keyboard above is already set to Bengali; you can switch language from the list if you need another.
- 2Click the keys on screen, or just type — your own keyboard is remapped to the layout shown.
- 3Use Shift for the second layer, which carries the rest of the characters.
- 4Copy the text when you are done, or download it as a .txt file.
Why type Bengali in a browser
Adding Bengali to an operating system is a settings-menu expedition that ends in a keyboard you cannot see: the letters are not printed on your keys, so you are typing blind in a script you may have no muscle memory for, and you have changed a system-wide setting to write one line.
The usual workaround is worse — hunting characters in a character-map utility and pasting them one at a time, or copying words out of search results and hoping the spelling survived the trip.
A visible keyboard solves the specific problem of writing Bengali occasionally: spelling a name the way it is written rather than the way it is transliterated, writing a message or a greeting to someone who reads Bengali, or adding Bengali to a form, a caption or a design. Every key is on screen, the arrangement is the standard one, and when you are finished there is nothing to undo.
One letter for b and v, and the khanda ta
Bengali writes both b and v with ব, which is why the separate व position of the standard layout is blank here. It is not a missing key — Bengali genuinely has no distinct letter there, and ব covers both jobs.
The letter that surprises people is ৎ, khanda ta: a half-form of ত that ends a word or a syllable, as in হঠাৎ. It is its own character rather than a ligature, and it is reached through the halant — ত followed by ্ produces it where the sequence calls for it.
Two conjunct forms carry a great deal of Bengali: ্য jo-phola, which attaches a y sound, and ্র ro-phola, which attaches an r. Both are built the ordinary way, with the halant on the D position between the two consonants, and both change the shape of the letter they join rather than sitting beside it.
র, ড় and ঢ় are three different letters
Bengali has a set of letters that differ only by a dot underneath: ড় and ঢ় and য় against ড, ঢ and য. The dot is the nukta, and it is a separate character typed after the base letter, from the key beside ড.
Getting it wrong produces a word that looks close and is not the same string. বড় without its nukta is a different word from বড, and a search, a database or a name check will treat them as unrelated.
The same care applies to ণ against ন. Both exist in Bengali spelling, the distinction is historical rather than audible for most speakers, and the correct one is a matter of the word rather than the sound. When copying a name off a document, copy the letter that is printed.
Bijoy, Avro and what Bangladesh actually types with
Bangladesh has its own input history, and it is worth being straight about. Bijoy — the Bijoy Bayanna layout and its non-Unicode ASCII fonts — dominated Bengali typing and publishing for decades, and files from it carry the same problem as Kruti Dev carries in Hindi: the document holds Latin codepoints and only reads as Bengali while the font is present.
The modern habit in Bangladesh is Avro, a phonetic input method where you type "bangla" and get বাংলা. It is free, it is Unicode, and it is what a large share of Bengali is now written with. In West Bengal, InScript — the layout on this page — is the more usual standard, because it is what ships with Indian systems.
This board is InScript and produces Unicode. If you are used to Avro's phonetic typing, the on-screen keys are the way in: you can find a letter by reading the board rather than by knowing where it lives.
Your own keyboard, remapped
Clicking keys is fine for a name and tedious for a paragraph, so the keyboard already in front of you is remapped while you type. Press the key where a Bengali letter sits on the picture and that letter is what appears, with the small grey label on each key telling you which of yours produces it.
The mapping follows the physical position of the key rather than the letter printed on it, so it lands correctly even if you already run AZERTY or Dvorak underneath. Space, Enter, Backspace and the arrow keys are left alone, and Ctrl and Cmd shortcuts pass straight through, so copy and paste keep working.
Nothing is sent anywhere. The layout is a few kilobytes of data in the page and every keystroke is handled in your browser — no request, no account, no history. That matters more than it sounds, because what people type in a script they cannot otherwise type is usually a name, an address or a message.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
Why is one key blank on the Bengali keyboard?
Because Bengali writes both b and v with ব and has no separate letter for the position. A blank key is more honest than emitting a codepoint the script does not define.
How do I type ড় or য়?
Type the base letter, then the nukta key beside ড. The dot is a separate character, and leaving it off gives a different word.
Is this Avro or Bijoy?
Neither. It is InScript, the positional layout standard in India, and it produces Unicode — so the text works anywhere, unlike Bijoy's non-Unicode fonts.
Is what I type sent anywhere?
No. The layout is data in the page and every keystroke is handled in your browser. There is no request to a server, no account and no history.
Do I have to click the keys?
No. Your own keyboard is remapped to the layout shown, matched by physical key position, so it works even on a non-QWERTY system. A checkbox turns it off.