FONTS

Unfortunately, unlike the English roman script, there is no universally accepted font layout for devanagari. Use any roman font on a QWERTY keyboard and typing 'a' will print 'a', shift + 'a' will print capital 'A'. Designers of devanagari fonts have tended to use their own system, which means that the font can only be used with a specific word processing program, or conversely, a web page in Hindi requires a specific font to be readable. Later this year I will be doing research in India on the standardisation of Hindi on computers and will publish my findings on this site.

Free Fonts Available on the Web
The best place to find Hindi fonts, and perhaps the most comprehensive resource center for Hindi on the Internet is at the Colorado State University. web site. Here is a selection of fonts, some of which are required to view specific web pages in Hindi, others are freely distributed for personal non-commercial use.
 
 

The above table gives some indication as to the general usability of these fonts available on the web. The quality of the typeface can vary between what is displayed on screen and what is actually printed. The image below shows the screen quality of some of these fonts. The Jaisalmer font designed by Ken Bryant for the MAC gives the best print quality but through conversion to a PC (mine not Ken's) the display quality has deteriorated.