Step by step
How to use the malayalam keyboard
- 1The keyboard above is already set to Malayalam; 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 Malayalam in a browser
Adding Malayalam 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 Malayalam occasionally: typing a name as Kerala records spell it, writing Malayalam into a message, a form or a caption, or adding a Malayalam line to a document that is otherwise in English. Every key is on screen, the arrangement is the standard one, and when you are finished there is nothing to undo.
Chillu letters, which end a word without ending a syllable
Malayalam has five chillu letters — ൺ ൻ ർ ൽ ൾ — consonants written in a special form when they close a syllable with no vowel after them. അവൻ ends in a chillu, and so does a great many Malayalam words and names.
They are their own Unicode characters rather than shapes the renderer invents, and they are produced by typing the consonant followed by the chandrakkala ് on the D position. The sequence is the same one that makes a conjunct elsewhere; Malayalam simply has these dedicated final forms for the result.
Getting a chillu wrong is not cosmetic. ൻ and ന് are different strings, and a name stored with one will not match a search for the other.
Old script and new script are both in use
Malayalam went through a script reform in the 1970s that split several conjuncts into separate letters to fit typewriters and early printing. Both forms survive: the reformed script in much modern print, the traditional script in older books, in literature, and in a good deal of what Unicode fonts now render by default.
The practical consequence is that the same typed sequence can look different on different devices, depending on which shaping the font prefers. It is the same text underneath, and a reader of Malayalam will read either without difficulty.
Where it matters is transcription. If you are copying a name off a printed document, copy the letters rather than matching the shapes, because the shapes are a font's decision and the letters are not.
ML-TTKarthika, ISM, and Kerala's Unicode turn
Malayalam publishing ran on ASCII fonts — the ML-TT family, Karthika, and the ISM software's own set — that store Latin codepoints under Malayalam shapes. Files from them arrive as Latin nonsense on any machine without the exact font.
Kerala moved to Unicode earlier and more thoroughly than most Indian states, helped by a strong free-software community and by Rachana and Meera, Unicode fonts that render the traditional conjuncts properly. Malayalam on the web today is largely Unicode, which is unusual and useful.
This board produces Unicode Malayalam, with the chillus as real characters. It pastes into anything and stays Malayalam.
On a phone, and on a desktop
On a phone the on-screen layout is the one you tap, and the device's own keyboard is kept from opening over the top of it — which is the failure that makes most virtual keyboards useless on mobile. Text still pastes in from elsewhere as usual.
On a desktop you can use either. The keys on screen are there to be read, and your own keyboard is simultaneously remapped to the Malayalam layout, matched by physical position so it holds up under any system layout.
Either way the text never leaves the page: no upload, no account, no server to trust. Copy it out when you are done, or download it as a plain .txt file.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
How do I type a chillu letter like ൻ?
Type the consonant and then the chandrakkala ് on the D position. The chillu is a real character, and it is not the same string as the consonant plus a visible chandrakkala.
Why does my text look different on another device?
Malayalam has a traditional and a reformed script, and fonts differ in which conjunct shapes they prefer. The underlying characters are the same.
Is this the standard Malayalam layout?
Yes, InScript — the default Malayalam keyboard on Windows, macOS, Android and Linux.
How do I get the text out?
Copy it, or download it as a .txt file. Editing keys work normally throughout — Backspace, the arrows and Ctrl or Cmd shortcuts all behave as usual.
Is anything stored between visits?
No. There is no account and no history; the text lives in the page until you close it. Nothing is sent to a server at any point.