How to Make German Characters on a Mac Windows

On both Macintosh and PC you can see and print the special German characters in two very different ways:
1) You can keep the standard American keyboard layout but use keystroke sequences, or even cut-and-paste, to add the special characters to your text.
2) You can select an alternate keyboard that is organized like those used by native speakers in their own countries, which reduces the extra keystrokes.

It’s a trade-off. If you want to keep your keyboard layout totally English/American, you’ll pay in extra keystrokes (fewer on Mac, more on Windows). If you want to save on keystrokes, especially on Windows, the price you pay is having to learn where the special characters are located on the foreign keyboard and of having some other characters, such as punctuation marks, moved to unfamiliar keys or even lost.

Here are the various ways you can get the special characters:

Macintosh:

Typing special characters is much easier than on Windows PCs. There are fewer keystrokes, it is easier to remember them, and the process is the same in all applications, as it has been since 1983.

Here it is. For umlauts (äÄ, etc.): hold down the option key and type u (for Umlaut), then type the character that is to receive the umlaut. Use shift key as usual to capitalize (after setting up the umlaut with option-u). For ß: hold down the option key and type s. That’s all there is to it, whether you’re in word processor, a browser, a spreadsheet, or whatever.

Since the special characters are so easy to do that way on Macs, keyboard reconfiguration is not that attractive for non-native speakers, unless you really intend to work in international business and be stationed in a German-speaking country You eliminate a few keystrokes but you will not easily adapt to the change in location of punctuation marks and the switch of "z" and "y." To change keyboards, go to System Preferences and then select "Language & Text".

Windows:

The straight-forward way to get special characters reliably on Windows computers is to hold down the Alt key and then type a four-digit code for each character. The special character will appear after you release the Alt key. Here are the codes for the German characters:

If you need to look up any foreign characters available on your Windows computer, following this path: Start\Prgrams\Accessories\System Tools\Character Map.

This method apparently works in all Windows applications, but it is tedious enough that several other ways have been devised.

Some applications, such as Microsoft Word, have their own methods (helpful or not) for entering special characters. You’ll find such things under a fairly obvious menu, and will see something like a movable palette that lets you click on the characters to insert them in the text. You can’t count on this for other applications, so the software you use may or may not have such a halfway helpful tool.

Some users find it helpful to make a simple “notepad” file that has one example of each special character in it. They can open it up alongside any other application and then cut-and-paste the characters to their files in the main application. Of course, if you move from computer to computer you have to carry the notepad file along with you, or make a new one on the spot.

Here’s another solution that Windows users may like: set up your Function keys (row of keys at top of keyboard) to do the German characters.

In Windows reconfiguring the keyboard to the German layout is an attractive option for many users, since you then have to use only single keystrokes. Here’s how to do it. Go to ?Start:Control Panel:Keyboard.? Then do ?input local(e••) change.? From the list that appears you’ll probably want "DE German keyboard (IBM)," rather than the Swiss or Austrian versions of the basic German keyboard, but take your choice. After you do that, the choice of keyboard language is made from the strip of symbols at the bottom of the screen, at the right. You’ll see letters like ?EN? or ?DE.? The layout of characters on the keyboard is:

For capital letters press the SHIFT key as usual.

As for the semi-colon, quote and hyphen that have moved elsewhere to accommodate the German characters, you’re on your own. Use the character map.

Sure, it’s annoying. It’s also annoying for Germans who have to adjust in the opposite direction, or who find that other people just ignore their special symbols, sometimes with drastic effects on meaning.

My brief advice:

Mac people: no big deal. Option-u for the umlauts, option-s for ß.

Windows people: either learn the alt-key sequences (or make a little card you carry around until you do), or else use a text processor like MS Word that gives you a relatively convenient palette with characters you can insert.