Fix Urdu subtitles that show garbled letters or punctuation on the wrong side
Urdu subtitles for dramas and films often circulate as old files saved in Windows-1256, or as files already damaged by being opened in the wrong encoding. Upload them, choose Urdu, and get UTF-8 subtitles with Urdu letters, Urdu punctuation marks and right-to-left marks so players put question marks on the correct side. One file or a ZIP of a whole drama serial. Jobs with up to 3,000 lines are free in full; bigger batches are $5.
- Windows-1256 converted, including the Urdu letters ٹ ڈ ڑ ں ھ ہ ے
- Garbled text such as سلام or ÓáÇã turned back into letters
- Arabic ي and ك replaced with Urdu ی and ک
- ? , ; turned into ؟ ، ؛; periods left as they are
- Right-to-left marks on every line; same names and formats back
Urdu in an old encoding
Windows-1256 was designed for Arabic but also contains the letters Urdu adds: ٹ, ڈ, ڑ, ں, ھ, ہ and ے, along with پ, چ, ژ, گ and ک. An Urdu subtitle saved in it is complete; it only needs to be read with the right table. Modern players read it as UTF-8 and show question marks or boxes instead. The tool detects Windows-1256 from the bytes, converts the file to UTF-8 and saves it with a byte order mark.
If the file was already opened in the wrong encoding and saved again, the Urdu text appears as Latin characters such as سلام or ÓáÇã. That is reversed too, as long as the letters were not replaced by real question marks.
Urdu letters and punctuation
- Arabic ي and ك, which some older files and keyboards produce, become the Urdu ی and ک. Other letters, including ے, are left as written.
- Latin ? , ; become ؟ ، ؛. A comma inside a number such as 1,000 stays.
- Periods are not changed into the Urdu full stop ۔; they stay as they are in your file.
- If the whole file has punctuation moved to the start of each line, it goes back to the end, and a trailing dialogue dash goes to the start.
- A right-to-left mark is added at both ends of each line, which keeps punctuation at the correct end in players that lay text out left to right.
About the look of the text
Urdu is usually printed in Nastaliq, but most players, phones and TVs display subtitles in a Naskh-style Arabic font, because that is the font they have. The repaired file contains correct Urdu letters; how they look depends on the font of the device, and the file cannot change that. If a device shows boxes instead of letters, it has no Arabic-script font at all; try another player app.
Formatting tags such as <i>, {\an8} and ASS override tags are kept, and timing is never touched.
How the tool works, what it costs and how your files are handled is on the Fix Persian & Arabic Subtitles page; prices for every tool are on the pricing page.
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Questions and answers
Can ChatGPT fix Urdu subtitles?
It reads Urdu and can correct a few lines you paste. It cannot recover a Windows-1256 file from pasted text, which is already broken by then, and a full drama episode is too long for chat replies without losing lines or time codes. This tool repairs the bytes and every line in code.
Why do my Urdu subtitles show question marks?
Usually the file is in Windows-1256 and your player reads it as UTF-8. Converting it to UTF-8 fixes that.
Will it change my periods to the Urdu full stop?
No. Question marks, commas and semicolons are converted to their Urdu forms, but periods are left as they are.
What does it cost?
A job with up to 3,000 lines in total is free in full, download included. A whole serial in a ZIP is $5, paid once, for up to 50 files and 50,000 lines.
Can I fix a whole drama serial at once?
Yes. Put the episode files in a ZIP and upload it; each comes back with its own name and format in one ZIP.
Does it work for Pashto and Sindhi?
Yes. Choose that language instead. Pashto and Sindhi keep their own letters, since the ی and ک replacement applies only to Persian, Dari, Urdu and Sorani.