How to type Sinhala online
If you have ever pasted Sinhala text into a chat and seen a wall of Latin letters, scrambled vowels, or empty boxes, you have run into the difference between Sinhala unicode and legacy Sinhala fonts. This guide explains what is going on and shows three reliable ways to type Sinhala online.
Why does Sinhala sometimes look broken?
Computers store text as numbers. The standard for Sinhala letters today is Sinhala unicode, where each letter has a single, agreed-upon number used by every modern operating system, phone, and browser. When you type Sinhala unicode, anyone with a recent device can read it without installing anything.
Before unicode became common in Sri Lanka, websites and newspapers used legacy fonts such as FM Abhaya, FM Bindumathi, FMDerana, and DL-Manel. These fonts used the same numbers as English letters, but drew Sinhala glyphs on top of them. If you copy text from an old website that uses one of those fonts and paste it into a chat or email, your device shows the original English letters instead of the Sinhala glyphs because it does not have the legacy font installed and even if it did, the font replacement only works inside that one website.
Unicode versus legacy at a glance
Sinhala unicode
Universal. Works on every modern phone, computer, and browser. Searchable, copy-pasteable, and shareable. This is what you want.
Legacy fonts
Look like English letters anywhere outside the website that uses them. Cannot be searched. Will not paste correctly into chat. Avoid when possible.
Typing Sinhala on Android
Most Android devices ship with Gboard, Google's keyboard. Gboard supports Sinhala out of the box.
- Open Settings → System → Languages and input → On-screen keyboard → Gboard → Languages.
- Tap Add keyboard and choose Sinhala.
- Pick the layout you prefer:
- Sinhala (Phonetic) — type in English letters and the keyboard converts them to Sinhala unicode (good for most users).
- Sinhala (Wijesekara) — the standard Sri Lankan layout used by typists.
- Back inside any app, tap and hold the spacebar to switch between English and Sinhala when you type.
If your phone is older and does not support Gboard's Sinhala layout, search the Play Store for "Helakuru" or "Sett Sinhala". Both are free, popular keyboards built specifically for typing Sinhala unicode.
Typing Sinhala on iPhone
iOS supports Sinhala unicode natively from iOS 13 onwards.
- Open Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard.
- Choose Sinhala from the list.
- When typing, tap the globe icon next to the spacebar to switch between English and Sinhala.
Apple's built-in Sinhala keyboard uses the Wijesekara layout. If you prefer phonetic typing, install Helakuru or SwiftKey from the App Store and follow the in-app instructions to enable the keyboard.
Typing Sinhala on Windows
Windows has supported Sinhala unicode since Windows 8.
- Open Settings → Time and language → Language and region.
- Click Add a language and choose Sinhala.
- Once added, click on the Sinhala language and select Options, then add the Sinhala (Wijesekara) keyboard layout.
- Switch between layouts using the language icon in the taskbar or by pressing Win + Space.
For phonetic typing on a desktop, install Helakuru Desktop. It runs in the background and converts English letters to Sinhala unicode in any application.
When to use the unicode converter
If you copied text from an older Sri Lankan website, a PDF newspaper article, or a Word document that uses FM Abhaya or another legacy font, the text will look like jumbled English letters when you paste it into chat. The platform includes a free Sinhala unicode converter that fixes this in one paste.
- Copy the legacy text from its source.
- Open the unicode converter.
- Paste the text into the input box.
- Choose the source font (the converter handles the most common ones: FM Abhaya, FM Bindumathi, FMDerana, DL-Manel, and similar).
- Copy the converted unicode text from the output box and paste it into the chat or anywhere else you need it.
Some heavily decorated legacy fonts have characters that do not have a clean unicode equivalent. Most of the time the converter handles these gracefully, but a small amount of manual editing may be needed for very stylised text such as old logo work.
Tip. Once converted, save the unicode version. Keeping unicode is cheaper than re-converting it every time you need to use it.
Practical tips for chatting in Sinhala
- Mixing English and Sinhala is normal. Most rooms use a mix. You do not need to commit to one or the other.
- Spelling matters less in chat. Sri Lankans switch between formal Sinhala and the Singlish abbreviations (a-la, mn, gn) all the time. The platform does not judge.
- Do not retype, copy. If a friend types something well, copying their phrasing is faster and more accurate than retyping it from scratch.
- Test your keyboard once. The first time you set up Sinhala typing, send a quick test message to a private chat with yourself or a trusted friend so you know the layout works before you need it in a busy room.