Telugu DTP in 2026: Photoshop, CorelDRAW, and the Right Workflow
Working with Telugu text in design software is one of those tasks that seems straightforward until it isn't. Open Photoshop, create a text layer, set the font to Anu7, type or paste some Telugu — and suddenly the screen is full of garbled Latin characters. This guide covers the correct workflow from start to finish, across the most common DTP applications used in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Understanding Why the Problem Exists
The root cause is an encoding mismatch. Modern operating systems, browsers, and most applications work with Unicode — a universal text standard where every character has a unique numeric identity. The Telugu letter "క" is always U+0C15, in any font, on any computer.
Anufonts predate Unicode adoption in Indian DTP. They store Telugu text as raw bytes in the ASCII/Windows-1252 range — byte value 0x6B displays as "క" only when Anu7 is the active font, because the font file's glyph at position 0x6B happens to be that Telugu shape. Every other font shows that byte as the Latin letter "k".
When you paste Unicode Telugu text into Photoshop with Anu7 selected, Photoshop receives Unicode code points in the range U+0C00–U+0C7F. Anu7 has no glyphs at those positions. The result is squares, boxes, or fallback Latin characters — not Telugu.
Workflow 1: Photoshop (CS through CC)
Step-by-step using AksharaTool
Why Notepad as the intermediary?
Notepad on Windows reads .txt files with ANSI (Windows-1252) encoding by default and stores the clipboard content as raw bytes. When you copy from Notepad and paste into Photoshop, Windows passes the byte data before Unicode conversion. This is the only reliable way to transfer cp1252 bytes through the clipboard on a Unicode-native OS.
Do not use Notepad++, VS Code, or other text editors — they may re-encode the content as UTF-8 when copying, which defeats the purpose.
Workflow 2: CorelDRAW
CorelDRAW has historically handled legacy Telugu fonts more gracefully than Photoshop because it supports importing text files directly with encoding control.
Alternatively, the Notepad copy-paste method from the Photoshop workflow works in CorelDRAW as well — paste into a text frame with Anu7 pre-selected.
Workflow 3: PageMaker 6.5 / 7.0
PageMaker is still in active use at many traditional print shops across South India for newspaper and book layouts. The workflow is straightforward:
PageMaker's Place function reads the raw bytes of the file, which makes it naturally compatible with cp1252-encoded content when set to the correct font.
Using the RTF Download Option
AksharaTool also offers a Download .rtf option. The RTF file embeds the Anu7 font reference and cp1252 encoding declaration directly into the file format. This can be opened directly in Word or WordPad and should display Telugu correctly without the Notepad intermediary step — provided Anu7 is installed on your system.
The RTF format is useful for workflows that involve Microsoft Word as an intermediate step before final layout in Photoshop or InDesign.
Common Problems and Solutions
Problem: Text appears as boxes or question marks
The Anu font is not installed, or a different font is selected. Ensure Anu Script Manager is installed and the correct font (Anu7 or Anu6) is selected in your application before pasting.
Problem: Some characters convert but others show wrong glyphs
You may be using Anu6 settings but have Anu7 installed (or vice versa). The i-kara matra position differs by 1 between the two versions. Make sure the converter setting matches your installed font version.
Problem: Copied from browser directly — text is garbled
Never copy the preview text from AksharaTool's output box directly into Photoshop. Always use the Download button and the Notepad intermediary method. The preview shows cp1252 bytes rendered as Latin characters — it is not suitable for clipboard transfer.
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