actually this is what i got when i used UTF8_decode function of PHP CODE: <?php $conn = mysql_connect('localhost','root','healthnet') or die('Could not connect to database'); $db = mysql_select_db('koha',$conn) or die('Could not select database'); $query = mysql_query("SELECT author FROM biblio") or die('Could not execute query'); $row = mysql_fetch_array($query); echo '<pre>'.$row['author'].'</pre>'; echo '<pre>'.utf8_decode($row['author']).'</pre>'; ?> Result: "कारॠकी, यॠवराज सिंह" "�?ार्�?�?, युवरा�? सि�?ह" Is there a problem with the search.pl script file??? I have set up the mysql character set as UTF8 and also the collation in phpmyadmin is utf8_general_ci . Isn't this sufficient for the Nepali Unicode??? Nepali is a Devnagari Script, similar to Hindi. Please Help. Thanks. -- Nitesh Rijal BE IT http://niteshrijal.com.np +9779841458173