Troubleshooting

Sinhala Font Problems & Fixes — Why Your Sinhala Text Looks Wrong

6 min read

Sinhala text display problems are extremely common in Sri Lanka, mainly due to the coexistence of legacy FM fonts and modern Unicode. This guide covers the most common problems and their solutions.

❌ Sinhala text shows as empty boxes □□□

Cause: The Sinhala Unicode font is not installed on your device.

Fix: Install Noto Sans Sinhala from Google Fonts or enable Sinhala language support in your OS settings.

❌ Text appears as random English letters like 'wxi fohla'

Cause: The document uses FM fonts but the FM font is not installed.

Fix: Install the specific FM font (FM Abhaya etc.) to view it, or use our converter to get Unicode.

❌ Sinhala text looks correct in Word but breaks in email

Cause: You copied FM font text which doesn't carry font information.

Fix: Convert the text to Unicode first, then copy and paste.

❌ Mobile phone shows question marks ???

Cause: FM fonts are not supported on mobile operating systems.

Fix: Convert all Sinhala text to Unicode before sending to mobile users.

❌ Website shows garbled Sinhala characters

Cause: The website is using FM font encoding instead of Unicode.

Fix: Contact the website owner, or copy the text and use our converter.

❌ Sinhala font looks too small or thin on screen

Cause: Low DPI screen or incorrect font rendering settings.

Fix: Use Noto Sans Sinhala at 16px or larger. Enable ClearType on Windows.

Prevention: Go Unicode-First

The best long-term solution to all Sinhala font problems is to standardize on Unicode. Convert all existing FM font documents to Unicode, train staff to type in Unicode, and use Unicode-compatible fonts for all new content. This eliminates the vast majority of compatibility issues permanently.

Convert FM fonts to Unicode now

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