How To Type German Using Qwerty Keyboard?

lazylogic · 12-28-2007, 07:03 AM

My little one is learning German and needs to type German on the computer.

anyone knows any tips and tricks to type German in Linux?

townie · 12-28-2007, 07:11 AM

hi
this site might help. not 100% sure
but good luck

http://rffr.de/dvorak

rupertwh · 12-28-2007, 07:24 AM

Hi,

the most comfortable way would obviously be to get a German keyboard. ;o)

But the difference is not that big - at least when writing normal text. Except for the Y-Z swap the difference is only in special characters. So you might get along with just loading German keycaps. (Possibly using a felt tip to mark the differing characters on the front of the keys).

Another (emergency-)solution would be to not use umlauts at all but their equivalents: Ö as Oe, ß as ss etc. But spelling checkers (and teachers) are probably not going to like it.

lazylogic · 12-28-2007, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rupertwh

Hi,

the most comfortable way would obviously be to get a German keyboard. ;o)

But the difference is not that big - at least when writing normal text. Except for the Y-Z swap the difference is only in special characters. So you might get along with just loading German keycaps. (Possibly using a felt tip to mark the differing characters on the front of the keys).

Another (emergency-)solution would be to not use umlauts at all but their equivalents: Ö as Oe, ß as ss etc. But spelling checkers (and teachers) are probably not going to like it.

Hi rupertwh, when you mentioned

- loading German keycaps, do you mean loading a particular software?

- not use umlauts at all but their equivalents, do you mean type Ö as Oe ? that would certainly looks odd

rupertwh · 12-28-2007, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazylogic

Hi rupertwh, when you mentioned

- loading German keycaps, do you mean loading a particular software?

No, depending on your desktop environment, you should have something like a "Keyboard" control panel which allows you to load / switch between different keyboard layouts. You shouldn't have to install any additional software.

Quote:

- not use umlauts at all but their equivalents, do you mean type Ö as Oe ? that would certainly looks odd

Yes, the two dots are actually a degenerate form of an appended 'e'.
But the only use today of the spelling 'ae', 'oe', 'ue' really is when technical limitations don't allow for (now) proper umlauts.

prasanta · 12-28-2007, 11:16 AM

Quote:

learning German and needs to type German on the computer.

You need to reconfigure your 'locales' if you have not configured it during the time of installation. Only after that you will be able to use QWERTY keyboard for typing in German. You can add it using the procedure as stated in the above post.

--
Prasanta

lazylogic · 12-28-2007, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rupertwh

... you should have something like a "Keyboard" control panel which allows you to load / switch between different keyboard layouts.

YES

Remembered that I've seen (maybe default activate in Knoppix) an app sitting at the systray that allows user to select the country (hopefully also the keyboard) to use.

Unfortunately, can't recall the applications name and unable to find it in Debian and openSUSE that my family is now using.

Please advise the name of the application if anyone can recall, else I'll just have to download one distro at a time and hunt for this application

lazylogic · 12-29-2007, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazylogic

YES

Remembered that I've seen (maybe default activate in Knoppix) an app sitting at the systray that allows user to select the country (hopefully also the keyboard) to use.

Unfortunately, can't recall the applications name and unable to find it in Debian and openSUSE that my family is now using.

Please advise the name of the application if anyone can recall, else I'll just have to download one distro at a time and hunt for this application

SOLVED !

in KDE control center
-> Regional and Accessibility
-> Keyboard Layout
-> Enable Keyboard Layout
-> Add German Layout
this will enable an applet in the system tray.

Using this image as a reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KB_Germany.svg
typing of the special characters is not an issue.

THANKS all for the help.