Learn to type in German

Being able to type with all your fingers can speed up a lot of what you do on a computer. You can sign up for online tutorials at http://www.goodtyping.com/ and you can save your progress so you can go back later to tackle further lessons. Why do I mention this site? It also offers to teach you to type in German. You can go straight to the German typing tutorials at www.zehnfinger.com/

Typing the special German characters ä Ä ö Ö ü Ü ß

Here are six methods for Microsoft Windows.

1. The way I prefer is to use the Windows language bar to switch the keyboard layout to German QWERTZ layout. The physical keys are still labelled for English use but it’s not difficult. Z and Y are swapped but the other 24 letters of the English alphabet stay in place for German.

For a larger picture and licensing details see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Germany.svg

Microsoft also offer Visual Keyboard to make it easier to work with different keyboard layouts. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/HP010501061033.aspx

2. Another method is to use the Windows Character Map