Nudi is a popular software application used for for typing Kannada language script. This software was originally developed by Kannada Ganaka Parishad a non profit organisation led by a group of Kannada loving volunteers in the year 2000. The software was funded and owned by the Government of Karnataka.
Software development for Kannada script and desktop publishing was started during the 1980s. Most of the Kannada software developed at that time did not have coding standards and had portability issues. So the Government of Karnataka decided to setup a committee to resolve this issue. It was Kannada Ganaka Parishad who came up with a solution and developed “Kannada Script Code for Language Processing” (KSCLP) a glyph code system which helped easy portability of Kannada script between different software environment. This was a significant achievement in the history of Kannada software. Hence the Government committee decided to make this a the standard coding system for all forthcoming Kannada software and it recommended all Kannada software developers to adopt this standard.
Now that the coding for Kannada script was standardised, the Government also wanted a standard reliable software. This idea gave birth to the software Nudi. Kannada Ganaka Parishad developed Nudi Software with this common coding system which was versatile enough to support Kannada script characters in various other fonts. Initially Nudi had minor database issues but later an advanced version was released in the year 2002. Ever since that time Nudi became the standard and the benchmark software for all other Kannada software. Following that the Government of Karnataka announced it as the official software.
There were both appreciation and depreciation with regard to the standardisation of Kannada script coding. There were some software developers who opposed to this idea mainly because it affected their business. Since commercialising could hinder the reach of this software among masses, the Kannada Ganaka Parishad came up with a solution and decided to offer this software as a free software for a noble cause.
Nudi software is compatible with most windows operating systems. Nudi 4.0 to Nudi 5.0 were developed on Monolingual font-encoding standard. Nudi 6.0 and later versions were developed based on UNICODE standards. Besides this Nudi 6.1 uses AutoHotKey scripting.
Available Nudi Software versions and Nudi Fonts for free download:
- Nudi 4.0
- Nudi 5.0
- Nudi 6.0
- Nudi 6.1
- Nudi 6.5
- Nudi for Apple MacOS
- Nudi Fonts