German Keyboard Online — Type in German Free

Typing German with Umlauts and ß

Standard German uses the Latin alphabet plus four characters an English keyboard leaves out: the umlauts ä, ö, ü and the sharp S, ß (the Eszett). This tool gives you a full QWERTZ keyboard where each of those has its own dedicated key, so you can spell names like Müller, Köln or Straße the way they are actually written, instead of falling back on bare vowels.

QWERTZ is the standard German-and-Austrian layout (DIN 2137). The name comes from the first six letters of the top row — Q W E R T Z — where the Z sits in the spot an English QWERTY board reserves for Y.

Try typing: Grüße aus München — "greetings from Munich" · schön — "beautiful"

Who Reaches for a German Keyboard

German is the most widely spoken native language in the European Union and is official in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg. Most people who open this page are not sitting at a German-made computer, so a single umlaut or ß turns into a hunt through character maps. A few situations where that adds up fast:

Learners and exams

Homework and Goethe or telc practice essays, where a dropped umlaut changes the word: schon ("already") is not schön ("beautiful").

Emails and applications

A German cover letter (Bewerbung) or a note to an office reads as careless when Grüße and Vielen Dank lose their special letters.

Names and places

Getting surnames like Schröder and cities like Düsseldorf or Zürich right on forms, tickets and searches.

The QWERTZ Layout, Key by Key

The main letter block matches an English keyboard with one deliberate swap: Z and Y trade places. Z climbs up beside T on the top row, and Y drops to the bottom row next to X. German leans on Z constantly — think of the tz and z clusters in Katze or zwei — while Y is rare, so the busier letter gets the easier reach.

The umlaut keys: ä, ö, ü

Rather than building accents from a dead key, QWERTZ hands each umlaut its own key on the right side of the board:

ü sits at the end of the top letter row, just past P. Hold Shift for Ü.
ö and ä sit at the end of the home row, right after L. Shift gives you Ö and Ä.

Because they are real keys and not combinations, typing für, hören or Bäcker is a single tap each — no accent-then-vowel sequence to remember.

The Eszett (ß) and the number row

The ß lives on the top number row, just after the 0 and = keys. It is the unshifted character on that key — pressing Shift there produces a question mark instead. The number row also parks several symbols in German positions that surprise QWERTY typists: Shift + 2 is the quotation mark ", Shift + 3 is the section sign § used in legal and academic citations, and the parentheses land on Shift + 8 and Shift + 9.

At the far right of the number row you will also find a combined accent key: ´ (acute) on its own and ` (grave) with Shift — useful for the occasional borrowed word like Café.

Extra keys worth spotting

A dedicated < / > key sits to the left of Y on the bottom row — a European-keyboard staple that QWERTY hides elsewhere.
+ and * share one key just past the ü on the top row.
The ^ and ° (degree) pair opens the number row on the far left.

Typing German Step by Step

1

Pick your input method

Click the on-screen QWERTZ keys with a mouse or finger, or click into the text box and type on your physical keyboard. You can freely mix the two as you go.

2

Reach the umlauts and ß

Tap the ä, ö, ü keys on the right of the board and the ß key on the number row. On the on-screen keyboard they sit exactly where a German typist expects them.

3

Use Shift for capitals and symbols

Hold Shift for capital letters, capital umlauts (Ä, Ö, Ü) and the shifted symbols, such as § on the 3 key.

4

Check, copy or clear

Watch the live character counter as you write, press Copy to send the whole text to your clipboard, or hit Clear to empty the box and start fresh.

Typing on a physical keyboard set to English? Its keys still print Latin letters, but Z and Y follow your own layout and the umlaut keys simply are not there — click ä, ö, ü and ß directly on the on-screen board instead.

German Typing Questions, Answered

Why are the Y and Z keys in different places?

That swap is the defining trait of QWERTZ. German uses Z far more often than Y, and Z frequently pairs with T, as in Platz or jetzt. So the layout lifts Z up to the top row and sends the rarely used Y down beside X.

What if a form won't accept ä, ö, ü or ß?

German has an official fallback: write the umlaut as its vowel plus e, and the ß as ss. So Müller becomes Mueller, schön becomes schoen, and Straße becomes Strasse. It is widely understood and still common in email addresses and older systems.

How do I make a capital ß?

Traditionally you do not — a word set in all capitals turns ß into SS, which is why STRASSE is the classic form. A capital Eszett (ẞ) was officially added to German spelling in 2017, but it is optional and is not on this layout, which keeps ß as its lowercase key.

How do I type the § section sign?

Hold Shift and press the 3 key. Germans call it the Paragraf sign and use it constantly when citing laws and contracts, as in § 5 Abs. 2. Note that the euro sign is not printed on this on-screen board.

Is this the same as a Swiss-German keyboard?

No. This is the Germany and Austria QWERTZ, with dedicated ä, ö, ü keys and a ß key. The Swiss QWERTZ has to share the board with French and Italian, so it forms umlauts through accent keys and drops ß entirely — Swiss Standard German writes ss everywhere instead.

Can I add accents for borrowed words like Café?

Yes. The accent key at the right end of the number row gives you ´ on its own and ` with Shift — enough for the handful of accented loanwords German keeps, such as Café, Attaché and Varieté. For everyday German you rarely need them; the umlauts and ß do the heavy lifting.