Which fonts should I use for Urdu on social media posts?

Urdu readers are used to Nastaliq, the flowing, slanted style of newspapers and signboards, and it looks natural for headlines, greetings and short offers. Its letters stack diagonally, so it needs more line height than English and becomes hard to read at very small sizes. Naskh is more upright and compact, which makes it better for long lists, menus and fine print. Plenty of good designs use Nastaliq for the headline and Naskh underneath.

Most broken Urdu on social media is a software problem, not a font problem. Design tools that do not shape Arabic script place letters separately instead of joining them, or reverse the order. Text copied out of InPage or a PDF can arrive scrambled. Numbers may switch between Urdu and Western digits in the same line. The only reliable check is reading the finished image on a phone, letter by letter, before it goes anywhere.

A few practical rules help. Keep Urdu headings large, because a phone screen shrinks everything. Give lines generous spacing. Avoid putting Nastaliq over a busy photo. Use the same Urdu font across all posts so it becomes part of your look, and pair it with an English typeface of similar weight. Check the licence of any font before using it commercially, since free to download does not always mean free for business use. We set and proofread Urdu by hand on every graphic we make.