How to type Special German Letters on Keyboard (ä ö ü ß)

German, like the English alphabet, has a standard set of 26 letters. The German alphabet, on the other hand, includes an additional character (ß) and the umlauted versions of three vowels (ä ö ü). The following are the Special German Letters:

• German letter ß, also known as the “sharp S“, “eszett” or “scharfes S”
• German letter ä know as “A with Umlaut”
• German letter ö known as “O with Umlaut”
• German letter ü Known as “U with Umlaut”

This guide will teach you how to type German Letters on a Mac or Windows PC using shortcuts on the keyboard.

There are different methods for typing these characters for different documents depending on the Operating System you are using. You’ll pick up each of these techniques in no time.

Let’s get started.

Type German Letters using Alt Code (Windows)

To type the Special German Letters, press and hold the alt key, then type the Special German Character alt code as below:

• To type German letter ß (“sharp S”, “eszett” or “scharfes S”), Press Alt + 0223.
• To type German letter Ä (Uppercase A with umlaut), type Alt + 0196.
• To type German letter ä (Lowercase a with umlaut), type Alt + 0228.
• To type German letter Ö (Uppercase O with umlaut), type Alt + 0214.
• To type German letter ö (Lowercase o with umlaut), type Alt + 0246.
• To type German letter Ü (Uppercase U with umlaut), type Alt + 0220.
• To type German letter ü (Lowercase u with umlaut), type Alt + 0252.

The table below lists all of the alternate characters for each of the Special German Letters – both lowercase and uppercase (i.e., small and capital letters).

Description	German Letters	Keyboard Alt code
Sharp S | Eszett | Scharfes S	ß	Alt + 0223
Uppercase A with Umlaut	Ä	Alt + 0196
Lowercase a with Umlaut	ä	Alt + 0228
Uppercase O with Umlaut	Ö	Alt + 0214
Lowercase o with Umlaut	ö	Alt + 0246
Uppercase U with Umlaut	Ü	Alt + 0220
Lowercase u with Umlaut	ü	Alt + 0252

Below is a step-by-step guide to type any of these Special German Characters with the help of the alt codes in the above table.

• To begin, open the document in which you want to type the Special German Letters. It could be Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or even in your web browser.
• Press the Num Lock key to turn it on. In other words, make certain that the numeric keypad’s keys are not disabled.
• Hold down the Alt key and type the alt code of the Special German Character you want to type using the numeric keypad. The table above contains the alt codes for the various German Letters.
• Now release the Alt key after typing the alt code with the numeric keypad.

NOTE: This option is only for Windows users. To type German Letters on Mac, refer to the next option.

How to Type Special German Letters on Mac (Shortcut)

A keyboard shortcut is the quickest way to type German Letters on a Mac.

Each letter with a Spanish Accent mark (á é ó ü) has its own unique shortcut. They all, however, use a very similar keystroke pattern.

Let’s look at how to type any of these characters on a Mac using keyboard shortcuts.

Description	Characters	Mac Shortcut
German S or Sharp S	ß	Option + S
German A with Umlaut	Ä	Option + U, then A
German O with Umlaut	Ö	Option + U, then O
German U with Umlaut	Ü	Option + U, then U

To use the Mac Keyboard shortcuts in the above table:

• First open the document that will contain the character.
• Simultaneously press and release Option + U, then press the letter a or o or u to make the German Letters with Umlaut accent.
• To type the Sharp S or Eszett symbol on Mac, press Option + S on the keyboard.

Note: If you want to type uppercase German Letters on Mac, use the above hotkeys whilst your caps lock key is turned on.

For more options on how to type these characters specifically in Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, refer to the remaining sections below.

Insert Special German letters with umlauts in Word

NOTE: As shown already, using Option 1 (Alt code for Windows) and Option 2 (shortcut for Mac), you can easily type German letters with umlauts in Word.

However, you can continue reading below if you want to learn more methods about how to insert these characters specifically into your Word document.

In addition to the alt code method, there are two other ways to insert the German letters with umlauts in Microsoft Word. The first method involved using the insert symbol dialog box, while the second method involved using a keyboard shortcut that only works in Word.

Let’s explore these options one after the other.

Using Insert Symbol dialog

To insert the German special letters using the insert symbol dialog box, obey the following instructions:

• Open up your Word document and place the cursor where you want to insert the Character.
• On the Insert tab, go to Symbols > Symbol > More Symbols.

• The Symbol dialog box will appear. Select Latin-1 Supplement from the “Subset:” drop-down list. This will display all the symbols under this category including lowercase and uppercase German Letters.
• Locate the German letter you wish to insert and double-click on it. Alternatively, click to select your desired German Letters and click on the Insert button to insert it into your document.

• Close the dialog.

These are the steps you may use to insert these symbols in Word using the Insert Symbol dialog box.

Using keyboard shortcut for Word

Each of the German special letters has its own set of keystrokes. These keystrokes or shortcut keys are only designed to function in Microsoft Word.

Thus, if you want to type these symbols in a program other than Word, look into the other options in this post.

Below are the various shortcuts to type German Letters in Microsoft Word:

• To type ß (German letter s), Press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [&], then S.
• To type ä (a with umlaut), press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [; semicolon] then a.
• To type ü (u with umlaut), press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [; semicolon] then u.
• To type ö (o with umlaut), press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [; semicolon] then o.

NOTE: These keystrokes will give you Lowercase Special German Letters. However, if you want uppercase characters, turn on the caps lock whilst typing the shortcuts.

These are the shortcuts for typing these letters in Microsoft Word.

Insert Special German Characters Mark in Excel

If you are using a Windows PC, you can easily type any letter with the Spanish Accent mark in Excel. Mac users can also use the shortcuts stated in section two of this tutorial.

However, if you are looking for another way to achieve this specifically in Microsoft Excel, the steps below will show you.

To insert Accent on German Characters in Excel:

• Launch Excel.
• Select the cell that will contain the character.
• On the Insert tab, click on the Symbols drop-down button and select Symbol from the list.

• The Symbols Dialog box will appear. From the “Subset:” drop down list, select Latin-1 Supplement. All the symbols under this group will appear including all lowercase and uppercase German Letters.

• Click to select the particular German special letters you want to insert, then click on the Insert button. Alternatively, double click on the symbol to insert it into your Excel document.

These are all the steps needed to insert any of the German letters with umlauts on top.

Insert German special letters in PowerPoint

Just like on Microsoft Word and Excel, you can use the German letters with umlauts alt code to type them into your PowerPoint document.

However, if you want another way to perform this task especially for PowerPoint, keep reading.

To insert German letters with umlauts in PowerPoint:

• Open your PowerPoint document.
• Place the insertion pointer on the slide you need the character.
• Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon.

• Click on the Symbols button to launch the Symbol dialog box.

• The Symbol dialog box will appear. From the “Subset” drop-down list, select Latin-1 Supplement. You should see all the German characters under this category of symbols.
• Select the particular German letter you wish to insert and click on the Insert button. Otherwise, just double-click on the symbol you want to insert into your PowerPoint document.

• Close the dialog.

These are the steps you need to be able to insert the Special German Letters in Microsoft PowerPoint using the Insert symbol dialog.

Copy and Paste German Letters

Another easy way you can get the German Letters on any PC (whether Windows or Mac) is to use my favorite method: copy and paste.

All you have to do is to copy the symbol from somewhere like a web page or the character map for windows users, and head over to where you need the symbol (say in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint), then hit Ctrl+V to paste.

Below are the German Letters for you to copy and paste into your Word document. Just select your desired symbol and press Ctrl+C to copy, switch over to your document, place your insertion pointer at the desired place, and press Ctrl+V to paste.

ß

ä

ö

ü

You can also use the Character Map to copy and paste any symbol or character on Windows. It contains every symbol or character you can think of.

Obey the following instructions on how to use the Character Map on any Windows PC.

• Click on the Start button and search for Character Map. The Character Map app will appear in the search results, click on it to open.

• The Character Map dialog will appear.
• Select the German Letters you want to insert by double-clicking on it, it should appear in the Character to copy: field, then click on the Copy button to copy the symbol.

• Switch to your document where you want to paste the copied symbol, place the insertion pointer at the desired location and press Ctrl + V to paste.

This is how you may use the Character Map dialog to copy and paste any symbol on Windows PC.

Conclusion

Among all these several options to type the Special German Characters, I think using the alt code method for Windows is the fastest option, provided you know the alt code for that particular symbol you want to type.

If you happen to use the Special German Characters often, you may consider making a cheat sheet for your reference.

Using the keyboard shortcut to type German letters is also a handy method for Mac users.

However, you can also use the mouse-based approach if you are inserting these symbols in any of the Office programs like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.