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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11To render Hindi correctly in a PDFShift PDF, use a font that covers the Devanagari characters in your text, define it with CSS @font-face in the conversion request’s css parameter, and apply that font to the Hindi content. Prefer a locally reachable font file or base64-encoded font data when practical: PDFShift warns that remote fonts may not finish loading before conversion. Then inspect the generated PDF for correctly shaped vowel signs and consonant clusters; CSS alone does not guarantee correct Devanagari shaping.
Why Hindi text can look wrong in a PDF
Hindi uses the Devanagari script, in which consonants carry an inherent vowel and combining vowel signs can change that vowel. Consonants may also combine using a virama, producing half-forms, stacked forms or ligatures. As a result, the displayed glyph sequence can differ from the underlying Unicode character order. A PDF needs both a font with the required glyphs and a rendering path that shapes those characters correctly. W3C’s Devanagari layout requirements describe these script behaviors; Microsoft’s OpenType Devanagari guidance explains syllable-based shaping and matra reordering.
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PDFShift documents custom font configuration through CSS, but the available guidance does not identify its exact rendering engine or version, certify a Hindi-compatible font list, or guarantee that every Devanagari sequence will shape correctly. Treat the resulting PDF—not the CSS declaration—as the thing to validate.
Choose and deliver a Devanagari font
Check coverage and shaping
Choose a font that contains the Devanagari glyphs actually used in your content and supports the OpenType shaping behavior needed for its clusters and marks. Do not infer complete coverage from a “multilingual” label. PDFShift’s custom-font example uses Pixelify Sans to demonstrate changing fonts; it does not recommend or establish that font as suitable for Hindi.
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Compare font delivery methods
| Method | Loading reliability | Implementation trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| External font URL | Can be inconsistent if conversion starts before the font finishes loading. | Simple to declare, but depends on the conversion process reaching and loading the remote resource in time. |
| Locally reachable font URL or base64-encoded font data | PDFShift recommends these approaches for more consistent, faster loading than remote external fonts. | Requires making the file available to the conversion or including encoded font data in the CSS. |
PDFShift documents the @font-face approach and the external-font timing risk in its custom fonts guide. “Local” here means reachable by the conversion process; make sure the file is actually accessible in your setup.
Configure PDFShift with CSS
Define the font in CSS and apply it to the element or section containing Hindi. Replace the example family and URL with a font source you have checked. This generic CSS illustrates the documented method; it is not a claim that an arbitrary WOFF2 file or URL will work in every PDFShift conversion.
@font-face {
font-family: 'Your Devanagari Font';
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 400;
src: url('https://your-host.example/fonts/devanagari-font.woff2') format('woff2');
}
.hindi {
font-family: 'Your Devanagari Font', sans-serif;
}Put this CSS in the conversion request’s css parameter and ensure the Hindi content matches the .hindi selector (or apply the family to a selector that already matches it). PDFShift’s Node.js guide confirms that css accepts a string or URL; Node.js is not required to use the CSS approach.
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If you must use an external font and it appears intermittently, PDFShift suggests experimenting with a delay or its JavaScript wait_for option so the font can load before conversion. The available guidance does not prescribe a universal delay value, so verify the result for your document and environment.
Validate the generated PDF
- Include representative Hindi content: ordinary letters and punctuation, a pre-base vowel sign, and examples with consonant clusters and virama behavior.
- Generate the PDF with the intended CSS and font source.
- Inspect the PDF visually. Check that signs appear in the expected position, cluster forms are joined and readable, and no glyphs are missing or replaced by boxes.
- If a case fails, compare a simple Hindi string with one containing matras or clusters. This helps distinguish a general font-loading or coverage problem from a shaping problem affecting more complex sequences.
This is a practical validation checklist derived from Devanagari’s layout requirements; PDFShift’s reviewed guidance does not provide a Hindi-specific test suite.
Troubleshoot broken Hindi output
| Symptom | Likely area to check | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Boxes, missing letters or substituted glyphs | The font may not have loaded, or it may not cover the characters present. | Confirm the font URL or encoded data is accessible to the conversion, check its Devanagari coverage, and try a locally reachable or base64-encoded source. |
| Remote-font results vary between conversions | The conversion may begin before the external font finishes loading. | Use a locally reachable or base64-encoded font, or experiment with a delay or wait_for as PDFShift suggests. |
| Simple characters render but matras or clusters look wrong | The font or rendering path may not handle the necessary shaping behavior. | Verify the font’s shaping support and inspect whether the problem is limited to complex samples. CSS font selection cannot establish that an unsupported shaping engine will be repaired. |
| CSS appears to have no effect | The stylesheet may not be applied to the Hindi elements, or the declared family may not match. | Check that the conversion request includes the CSS and that the selector and font-family apply to the relevant content. |
Or skip the browser setup
For a website screenshot rather than a PDFShift conversion, ScreenshotNeo returns a screenshot or PDF from one GET request. Its CSS, headers, cookies, and other capture options are documented at ScreenshotNeo’s API documentation. For example, this cURL request captures a PDF from the target page:
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -d format=pdf -o page.pdfScreenshotNeo removes cookie banners, newsletter popups and chat widgets before capture; bot checks, blank pages and failed loads are not billed. Its MCP server lets AI agents take screenshots, and the Free plan includes 1,000 screenshots a month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. These are website captures, not a replacement for configuring a Hindi font in a PDFShift conversion.
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