Unicode to Vanavil Converter
Turn Unicode Tamil into Vanavil-Avvaiyar codes for older Tamil publishing workflows, without retyping a single word.
Going the other way? Use Vanavil to Unicode. For Bamini, see the Unicode to Bamini converter or the Tamil font converter.
How to Convert Unicode to Vanavil
- Paste Unicode Tamil Copy Tamil text from any modern app — it is already Unicode if it displays as Tamil without a special font.
- Convert The output appears on the right as you type, or press “Convert to Vanavil”.
- Copy the output Use “Copy Output”. The text is now Vanavil codes, not Tamil letters.
- Apply the font In Word, PageMaker or CorelDRAW, set the font to Vanavil-Avvaiyar and check the result on screen before printing.
About the Vanavil-Avvaiyar Font
Vanavil is the encoding behind the widely used Vanavil-Avvaiyar Tamil typeface. Unlike Bamini, which assembles many clusters from a base consonant plus prefixes and suffixes, Vanavil gives nearly every combination its own position in the code page. The practical difference for you: the converted text contains more distinct accented glyphs and fewer assembled sequences.
The encoding is still used in school material, government templates and older Tamil publications. Converting to Unicode is the way out of that ecosystem; converting back is sometimes the only way to feed an existing template.
The Vanavil-Avvaiyar font itself is not distributed here — the font download page covers Bamini and the free Unicode Tamil fonts you can use instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Vanavil encoding?
Vanavil (Vanavil-Avvaiyar) is a legacy Tamil font that stores Tamil as Latin characters in a full code page — every consonant has its own pulli, ு and ூ forms. Text typed with it only looks like Tamil when the Vanavil-Avvaiyar font is selected.
Why does the converted text look like accented gibberish?
That is the encoding working as intended. Vanavil uses accented Latin characters such as ä and œ, so தமிழ் becomes jäœ. Set the font to Vanavil-Avvaiyar in your application and the same characters render as Tamil.
Does it work with PageMaker, CorelDRAW and Word?
Yes, as long as the destination application has the Vanavil-Avvaiyar font installed. Copy the output, paste it as plain text, then apply the font. Check a short sample first: line breaks and spacing often need a manual pass in desktop publishing software.
Can I convert English words that appear in the text?
The converter maps Tamil characters and leaves plain ASCII letters untouched, but Vanavil uses many of those letters as codes itself, so mixed sentences are ambiguous by nature. Convert the Tamil portion separately and rejoin it afterwards.
Vanavil to Unicode Converter
Decode Vanavil text such as jäœ back into Unicode Tamil that displays anywhere.