How to convert an old AcadNusx Word document to Unicode Georgian

Why old Georgian documents look like gibberish

AcadNusx and its relatives are not Georgian encodings: they are ordinary Latin fonts whose letter shapes were redrawn as Georgian letters. The file really contains the characters s a q a r T v e l o. They only look like Georgian while that particular font is applied.

Unicode fonts such as Sylfaen or Noto Sans Georgian store real Georgian letters, so the text survives copying, searching, spell checking, email and web pages. Converting means replacing each Latin character with the Georgian letter it was drawn as, and switching the font.

How to tell which font a document uses

Open the document in Word and click into a line of Georgian text. The font name in the toolbar shows the answer. Old Georgian fonts usually have “Acad”, “Lit”, “Nusx” or “Mtavr” in the name: AcadNusx, AcadMtavr (capital letters), LitNusx, LitMtavr.

If you do not have the font, Word shows the text in a fallback font and the font name is still written in the toolbar. You can convert without installing anything.

Convert the whole Word document

1. If the file is .doc, open it in Word and choose Save As, then Word Document (.docx).
2. Open Word documents: AcadNusx → Unicode and drop the .docx file in.
3. Check the list of fonts. The old Georgian fonts are ticked, each with a before and after sample so you can see that it works.
4. Pick the Unicode font (Sylfaen is installed with Office) and press Convert, then download the new file.

Only the text in the old fonts is changed, together with its font name. Tables, pictures, headers, footers, footnotes and page layout stay as they were. The document is processed in your browser and never uploaded.

What to check afterwards

• Capitals. Text in AcadMtavr or LitMtavr is converted to normal letters and marked as capitals. Word shows real Georgian capitals only with a font that has them; otherwise it stays in normal letters.
• Punctuation. Quotation marks and some symbols were drawn differently in the old fonts. Scan the document for them.
• Line breaks. Georgian Unicode fonts are a little wider or narrower than the old ones, so pages may re-flow.

A PDF or a scan instead of a Word file

A PDF keeps the font with the text. If you can copy text out of it you will usually get Latin letters; paste them into Old Georgian fonts → Unicode. A scanned page has no text at all: use Image to text (OCR), which reads Georgian from the picture.

Frequently asked questions