The Dirham Symbol
in Canva and Instagram.

Why a Dirham symbol screenshot or PNG looks bad

A screenshot of the symbol looks fine until you zoom in or print it. Then the problems show:

• It goes blurry when you make it bigger, because a screenshot is a fixed grid of pixels.
• It has the wrong colour, often with a white box behind it on a coloured background.
• It never quite lines up with the numbers next to it, so every price needs nudging by hand.
• It isn't text, so you can't search for it, edit it in a hurry or change 40 prices at once.

Two things fix all of this: a vector file (SVG) for one-off artwork, or a font for anything with prices in it.

How to add the Dirham symbol in Canva

Option A: Upload the font (Canva Pro, Teams and similar plans)

1. Open your Brand Kit. In Canva, go to Brand and open the kit you use. Uploading fonts is available on Canva Pro, Teams and some other plans, and only to owners, admins or brand designers.
2. Upload the font. Under Brand fonts, choose Upload a font and pick Dirham-Regular.otf or .ttf from Dirham Font.
3. Type your price. In a text box, type D 250.
4. Switch just the D. Highlight only the D and choose the Dirham font. The numbers stay in your brand font, and the symbol picks up your text colour.
5. Reuse it. Copy that text box into your other designs, and every price comes out the same.

Option B: Upload a Dirham symbol SVG (free plan)

Canva's free plan can't upload fonts, but it accepts SVG files. The Central Bank's symbol guideline includes a downloads section with vector artwork. Upload the SVG under Uploads, place it next to your number, then resize it until it matches the height of the digits. It looks sharp, but you have to place it by hand on every price.

The Dirham symbol in Figma, Photoshop and Illustrator

Install the font on your computer first (double-click the OTF on Mac, or right-click the TTF and choose Install on Windows). Then:

• Figma: the desktop app sees fonts installed on your computer. In the browser, install Figma's font installer. Restart Figma, type D and pick Dirham.
• Photoshop and Illustrator: type D in a text layer, select it and choose Dirham from the font menu. It stays vector, so it scales cleanly to a billboard.

How to use the Dirham symbol on Instagram

Instagram doesn't let you choose custom fonts for captions or Story text, so the symbol can't be typed there the way it can in Canva. What works:

1. Put the price in the image. Design the post or Story in Canva or Figma with the font, then export it as PNG or JPG.
2. Keep captions readable. Until most phones can display U+20C3, a pasted symbol may show up as an empty box for some followers. Write AED 250 in the caption for now.
3. Check on two phones. Before a big campaign, look at the post on an iPhone and an Android to see how the price comes across.

The Dirham symbol in menus and price lists

Restaurant menus, salon price lists and quotes usually live in Word, Pages or Excel. Install the font once and you can switch a whole document in a minute:

1. Find and replace in Word. Press Ctrl+H (or Cmd+Shift+H on Mac). Find AED and replace with D .
2. Apply the font in the same step. With the cursor in the Replace box, open More → Format → Font and choose Dirham. Every D you insert gets the font.
3. Check one line. The result should read like this:  48 with the symbol first and a space before the amount.
4. Send a PDF. A PDF keeps the symbol on any device, even if the printer or the client doesn't have the font.

What size should the Dirham symbol be?

The Central Bank's guideline asks for the symbol to be the same height as the text next to it, to sit before the amount with a space, and not to appear together with “AED”. In practice:

 32 1,250

Keep the symbol in the same colour as the price. Avoid outlines, shadows or gradients on it, and don't stretch it. If the symbol looks heavier or lighter than your numbers, try a weight of your price font that matches it better, rather than distorting the symbol.

What changes after the Unicode update?

Unicode 18.0 (September 2026) gave the symbol a standard code, U+20C3, and device fonts will catch up over the coming months. Captions will get easier once they do. Canva's built-in fonts, older laptops and printed files will still need a font or a vector that actually contains the symbol, so this workflow keeps paying off.

Keep reading: How to type the Dirham symbol in Word, Excel, Mac and Windows. Pricing in Saudi riyals too? Saudi Riyal symbol font for Canva, Word and Figma.