#rev 2018-10-31 bonaccos

## page was renamed from Workstations/Linux/Configurations/GermanUmlauteOnEnglishKeyboard
= How to enter german Umlaute and other special characters on US keyboards =

== Compose Key ==

The '''Compose Key''' is a configurable special key in the X11 keyboard input system. On our linux clients the '''Compose Key''' is configured on the '''Right Windows Key''' on the keyboard.

If you press and release the compose key you can now enter special combinations of existing
characters on the keyboard to compose special characters. Here is a table of the most commonly
used combinations:

||''' key 1 '''||||''' key 2 '''||||''' result '''||
|| " |||| a ||||''' ä '''||
|| " |||| A ||||''' Ä '''||
|| ^ |||| a ||||''' â '''||
|| ` |||| e ||||''' è '''||
|| ' |||| e ||||''' é '''||
|| - |||| : ||||''' ÷ '''||
|| 1 |||| 2 ||||''' ½ '''||
|| = |||| c ||||''' € '''||
|| - |||| L ||||''' £ '''||
|| o |||| c ||||''' © '''||
|| / |||| O ||||''' Ø '''||

You can find a complete list at: http://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose 

== Entering characters with the unicode code ==

After pressing <CTRL><SHIFT>u simultaneously you can enter characters with their unicode code (while stil holding <CTRL><SHIFT>), e.g. the code 2665 gives the character '''♥''', or fb21 gives the character '''ﬡ''', ... enjoy it ... ☺

For a unicode table see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters 
 
== Switching keyboard layout ==

If you are able to use other keyboard layouts than US blindly you can also switch the keyboard to another layout ( swiss german, ...).

In all modern linux desktops environments (Gnome, KDE, Xfce, ..) the keyboard layout can be configured by the user in the Settings/Preferences menu.  

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[[CategoryLXCL]]