What a difference an umlaut makes...

and the difference is ü

Welcome to the German 1101 Umlaut Tutorial!

In order to communicate successfully in German on the Internet, you need to know how to generate umlauts and other diacritics in your computer. This brief tutorial will show you how.

Contents

Introduction- READ ME FIRST!
PC
Using a built-in keyboard
Using Extended ASCII characters
Using Microsoft Word
Macintosh
Using a built-in keyboard
Using the Option Key
Writing in HTML & Other Internet Languages

Introduction

In this course, we will make use of the course bulletin board, E-mail and web assignments throughout the course of the semester. Using special characters such as umlauts (Ü, Ä, Ö, etc.) is perhaps the trickiest aspect of communicating in German on the Internet. Often, these characters get lost in transition from one browser or E-mail reader to another.

Netscape Communicator has an E-mail reader that recognizes diacritics such as umlauts. PINE AND CUBMAIL DO NOT RECOGNIZE THESE CHARACTERS. If you are using Pine or CubMail to read your email, we recommend that you visit the ACIS home page to see how you can start reading your Columbia e-mail using Netscape Communicator.

PC

Using a built-in keyboard

The best way to generate diacritics using a PC is probably to switch the keyboard settings to reflect the standard German keyboard layout. You might want to use stickers to indicate which keys are which, since the German keyboard is significantly different from the standard U.S. keyboard. Check your computer's Settings folder to see if this option is available.

Using Extended ASCII characters

You can insert characters with diacritics in an IBM compatible PC environment using the Extended ASCII Character Set. These characters are usually generated by holding down the "ALT" key and typing in a three-digit numeric code USING THE NUMERIC KEYPAD on the right side of your keyboard. For example, ALT+129 will produce "ü." For a complete table of these codes, click here.

Using Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word will allow you to insert characters with umlauts and "ß"s by clicking Insert-Symbol or pressing Ctrl+W and choosing from the table that pops up. If this becomes tedious, check your program's Help guide to see how you can create macros or shortcuts for each individual character. If you cut and paste a Microsoft Word document with umlauts into a bulletin board posting, the umlauts should show up.

Macintosh

Using a built-in keyboard

You can switch the keyboard settings in your Macintosh to reflect the standard German keyboard layout. You might want to use stickers to indicate which keys are which, since the German keyboard is significantly different from the standard U.S. keyboard. Check Control Panels-Keyboard in your computer's Apple Menu to see if this option is available.

Using the Option Key

You can also generate all the characters you need using the "Option"("Alt") key. To generate umlauts, press Option+u and then press the desired character. For example:

The combination... produces
Option+u, then u ü
Option+u, then o ö
Option+u, then a ä
Option+u, then Shift+u Ü
Option+u, then Shift+o Ö
Option+u, then Shift+a Ä
Option+s ß

Writing in HTML & Other Internet Languages

If you are writing in HTML, cutting and pasting text from another document (for example, a Microsoft Word document) can often result in loss or distortion of diacritics. You can use special codes to generate diacritics in your HTML documents. For example,

The combination... produces
ü ü
ö ö
ä ä
Ü Ü
Ö Ö
Ä Ä
ß ß

Congratulations!!

You are ready to explore the web in German!

If you still need more help, try consulting one of these resources:

Netscape Communicator Reference Library online

Webmonkey Guides for using the Web, including HTML code cheat sheets