German Characters

[M Anderson]

How do I type German characters in Reunion? Using Yosemite.
Thanks!

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: German Characters

How do I type German characters in Reunion? Using Yosemite.
Thanks!

The same way you'd type them anywhere under Mac OS (that is, this is an operating system "thing", not a program "thing".)

There are two easy ways: type the vowel you want the diacritical mark to appear over, and hold it down. A little menu will appear with a list of choices for that letter. For example, for "e", you'll see:

è é ê ë ē ė ę
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

To insert the character, let go of the key and press the number corresponding to your choice.

Same with the esszett (ß): press 's' and hold, and the menu will appear. Though in this case option-s works a bit quicker.


The other way is to memorize the keyboard equivalents of characters. For example, to type ü you type option-u, then "u".

You can see some of these here.

[Kim]

Re: German Characters

You can also add a German from your keyboard preferences and quickly switch to it when you need it. That's how I add my Italian characters.

[M Anderson]

Re: German Characters

Thank you Dennis and Kim. I had a feeling it was going to be something simple!

[George Gerton]

Re: German Characters

Thank you Dennis and Kim. I had a feeling it was going to be something simple!

Depending on the character you need, you might simply be able to hold a specific key down and choose the letter you need without having to change the keyboard language.

For example, if you hold the "E" key down, you can choose from these choices: e, è, é, ê, ë, ē, ė, ę.

If you want an "U" with an umlaut: ü, or capitalized: Ü.

George

[George Gerton]

Re: German Characters

Depending on the character you need, you might simply be able to hold a specific key down and choose the letter you need without having to change the keyboard language.

For example, if you hold the "E" key down, you can choose from these choices: e, è, é, ê, ë, ē, ė, ę.

If you want an "U" with an umlaut: ü, or capitalized: Ü.

George

Just realized this answer had already been given. Apologies for the duplication!

[Lawrence E Moore]

Re: German Characters

How do I type German characters in Reunion? Using Yosemite.
Thanks!

Another option: Use the character viewer. In keyboard preferences, if you check the box SHOW KEYBOARD...VIEWER IN MENU BAR, then a small icon appears near the right end of the menu bar for the character/keyboard viewer. (Close preferences.)

Assuming your cursor is where you want the special character to go, click the viewer icon in the menu bar and the viewer appears. Choose SHOW [character, symbols, emoji depending on OS version]--not keyboard. Choose Latin in the left panel of the window that appears. Choose the upper or lower case letter in the center panel. Scroll down in the right panel to the variant you want and double click it. It will be inserted at the cursor.

The character viewer can be customized. If a certain character is used frequently, it can be added to Favorites to make it more accessible. The gear icon near the top left puts collections at your fingertips: alphabets (Greek, Thai, and more), symbols (currencies, math), emoji, musical symbols, dingbats, signs, etc. can be added to the left panel by choosing Customize List and check the ones you want. Thenceforth, clicking on a collection in the left panel shows the characters in the center panel; selecting a character shows variations in the right panel. Double clicking the variant inserts at your cursor.

Since this is a system app, it works with any word processor, database, spreadsheet, mail program, etc. that makes use of the system character sets. Once you get your favorites set up, it's great for inserting math or Greek symbols as well as German characters and pictograms....🍷

[M Anderson]

Re: German Characters

Thanks everyone! You've been very helpful.

[Reiner L. Sauer]

Re: German Characters

How do I type German characters in Reunion? Using Yosemite.
Thanks!

There are four characters, which are unique to the German language. They are the Umlaut characters ä, ö, ü (plus upper case Ä, Ö, Ü) plus the special s-character ß

if you are using an American QWERTY keyboard type
alt-u + a and this returns ä
alt-u + o and this returns ö
alt-u + u and this returns ü
alt-s returns ß

alt-u + shift-a returns Ä
alt-u + shift-o returns Ö
alt-u + shift-u returns Ü

Regards
Reiner

[M Anderson]

Re: German Characters

There are four characters, which are unique to the German language. They are the Umlaut characters ä, ö, ü (plus upper case Ä, Ö, Ü) plus the special s-character ß

if you are using an American QWERTY keyboard type
alt-u + a and this returns ä
alt-u + o and this returns ö
alt-u + u and this returns ü
alt-s returns ß

alt-u + shift-a returns Ä
alt-u + shift-o returns Ö
alt-u + shift-u returns Ü

Regards
Reiner

Thanks Reiner. What is the special S character called?

[Terri Works]

Re: German Characters

Another option: Use the character viewer. In keyboard preferences, if you check the box SHOW KEYBOARD...VIEWER IN MENU BAR, then a small icon appears near the right end of the menu bar for the character/keyboard viewer. (Close preferences.)

Thanks for this great tutorial - I needed the pound sign in my genealogy and the ñ in my Spanish class!!

[Dardel]

Re: German Characters

Thanks Reiner. What is the special S character called?

The ß character is called Esszet in German, it stands for ss in some words. According to the "new spelling rules" it is used before a long vowel or a diphthong.

[Reiner L. Sauer]

Re: German Characters

Thanks Reiner. What is the special S character called?

Here's a description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ß

Regards
Reiner

[M Anderson]

Re: German Characters

Thanks.

[fmlyhntr]

Re: German Characters

I like using the different characters--I have a lot of Danish ones. But, they don't transfer well to other formats. If you plan on uploading to Ancestry, or send a GEDCOM to someone, think about not using them, or at least minimizing their usage. For the esset, I would use the double ss, just because some day someone out there will read Weiß as Weib, or it will show up as Wei)(*^.

Christina