Bijoy vs Unicode: what's the difference, and which to use?

Bijoy vs Unicode comes down to how the letters are stored. Unicode gives every Bangla letter its own code, so the text shows correctly on any phone, browser or computer. Bijoy, in its classic form, stores Bangla as English letters and symbols that only look like Bangla when a Bijoy font such as SutonnyMJ is selected; anywhere else you see gibberish like "Avgvi †mvbvi evsjv" instead of আমার সোনার বাংলা. Use Unicode for almost everything today, and Bijoy only when a printing press or an old file needs it. You can convert in both directions with our Bijoy to Unicode converter.

What Bijoy is

Bijoy (বিজয়) is a Bangla keyboard layout and software package made by Mustafa Jabbar. It was launched on 16 December 1988, first for the Apple Macintosh, and later came to Windows. For about two decades it was the main way people in Bangladesh typed Bangla on computers: newspapers, printing presses, offices and coaching centres all used it.

At that time computers had no standard way to store Bangla letters. Bijoy solved this with a clever trick. It took the codes normally used for English letters, numbers and symbols, and paired them with special fonts (the "MJ" fonts, such as SutonnyMJ) that draw Bangla shapes in place of those characters.

So when you type আমার in Bijoy, the file actually stores the characters Avgvi:

Stored character	Drawn by SutonnyMJ as
Av	আ
g	ম
v	া (aa-kar)
i	র

With SutonnyMJ selected, the screen shows আমার. Change the font to Arial, open the file on a phone, or paste it into Facebook, and the real characters appear: Avgvi.

What Unicode is

Unicode is the worldwide standard that gives every letter of every script its own number. Bangla has had its own block in Unicode since the first version of the standard in 1991. In Unicode, আ is always the character U+0986, whatever font you use.

Because the meaning is stored, not just the shape, Unicode Bangla:

• shows correctly on every modern phone, browser and operating system
• can be searched, sorted and spell-checked
• can be read by Google, so Bangla websites can rank in search
• works in email, SMS, Facebook, WhatsApp and online forms
• can be shown in any Unicode Bangla font (Nikosh, SolaimanLipi, Kalpurush and many more)

Bijoy vs Unicode: the key differences

	Bijoy (classic, ANSI)	Unicode
How letters are stored	English letter codes	A unique code for each Bangla letter
Needs a special font	Yes, a Bijoy font such as SutonnyMJ	No, any Unicode Bangla font
Letter order in the file	The order you see (ি before the consonant)	The order you speak (consonant, then ি)
Shows on phones and websites	No, shows as "Avgvi" gibberish	Yes
Searchable by Google	No	Yes
Still common in	Printing presses, old documents, some design work	Almost everything else

The letter order point matters more than it looks. In Bijoy, কি is stored as wK: the ি sign first, then ক, because that is how it appears on paper. Unicode stores ক first and then ি, and the font places the sign on the left. That is why simple find-and-replace cannot convert between the two: each syllable has to be reordered. Conjuncts (যুক্তবর্ণ) such as ক্ষ and ন্ত্র, the reph (র্) and ya-phala add more reordering.

A note on names: "Bijoy" can mean the keyboard layout or the old encoding. Newer Bijoy versions can type in Unicode too, so someone using the Bijoy layout may be producing Unicode text. The problem this guide is about is the old encoding with SutonnyMJ-type fonts.

Which one should you use?

Use Unicode for:

• Facebook, WhatsApp, email and SMS
• websites, blogs and online forms
• job applications and documents you send by email
• anything you want people to search for, or read on a phone

Use Bijoy only when:

• a printing press or designer specifically asks for Bijoy (SutonnyMJ) text
• you are editing an old Bijoy document and keeping it in Bijoy
• a form or template you must use was built around Bijoy fonts

If you type in Bijoy out of habit, you don't have to relearn the keyboard. Keep typing as you do, then convert the text to Unicode before you share it online.

How to convert Bijoy to Unicode (and back)

Our Bijoy to Unicode converter works in both directions, live as you type:

1. Open the converter and choose Bijoy → Unicode (or Unicode → Bijoy).
2. Paste your text. Gibberish like Avgvi †mvbvi evsjv turns into আমার সোনার বাংলা straight away.
3. Copy the result, or download it as a .txt file.
4. Press Swap if you want to turn the result back into the other format.

The converter handles the hard parts: vowel signs typed before the letter (ি, ে, ৈ, and ো/ৌ split around it), reph, ya-phala and ra-phala, conjuncts like ক্ষ, ন্ত্র and স্ব, and Bangla digits. It runs in your browser, so your text is not uploaded anywhere.

When you go from Unicode to Bijoy, paste the result into Word, Photoshop or InDesign and select a Bijoy font such as SutonnyMJ. Without that font it will look like English gibberish again; that is normal.

After converting, you can check the length of your Bangla text with our Word Counter, which counts Bangla words correctly because the text is now Unicode.

Common problems after converting

Some letters look broken. Make sure the Unicode text is shown in a Unicode Bangla font, not a Bijoy one. A Bijoy font cannot draw Unicode text properly.

Text copied from a PDF converts badly. PDFs made from Bijoy files sometimes copy out with missing or reordered characters. If you have the original Word file, convert from that instead.

A few words still look odd. Old files sometimes use rare glyphs or a different Bijoy-style font. Fix those words by hand after converting; the rest of the text will be fine.

Quick checklist

• Gibberish like "Avgvi" means the text is in Bijoy
• Going online, to a phone or into email: convert to Unicode
• Going to a printing press that asks for SutonnyMJ: convert to Bijoy
• After Unicode to Bijoy, select a Bijoy font in your design app
• Show Unicode text in a Unicode Bangla font
• Keep the original file until you have checked the converted text

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