Thinkpads Forum

Hi. I am trying to type with Umlauts and am having no luck in Word, in sending emails etc. on my new T60. The ususal way I do this is through alt xxx, number combinations. This is not recognized at all on this machine. Is this a hardware issue or software issue? Any tips on how to fix this problem? It is reeeeaally important

matthew

Hi Bemps,

If it is just a matter of getting your umlauts in Word in combination with other letters, you can get them from

Insert > Symbol

The Symbol dialog will open, choose the font you want (Arial, Times New Roman, etc.). You will see all the diacritics. And you can assign shortcut keys, so for u umlaut you could use Ctrl+;u (the suggested shortcut) and get your ü that way.

You can also get the umlaut by itself if this is what you want and assign whichever shortcut you want.

Did you upgrade your HDD from 80 to 100? Where did you get it?

If you have to type a lot of Umlauts, why not order a German keyboard.
I live in the Netherlands, but have to type a lot of German texts (my wife actually does), so she could not live without it. Having a German keyboard is also far more efficient.

Bemps wrote:Hi. I am trying to type with Umlauts and am having no luck in Word, in sending emails etc. on my new T60. The ususal way I do this is through alt xxx, number combinations. This is not recognized at all on this machine. Is this a hardware issue or software issue? Any tips on how to fix this problem? It is reeeeaally important

matthew

If you want to use the Alt key combinations, I think you can only do it by using the "keypad". By that i mean pressing shift+numlock to enable numlock and use the number keys located on the right half of the keyboard

Steve

Hi,

I'd like to share with you another solution I've used on all my Win2K and XP PCs, which has enabled me to enter text in English, German and Hebrew, which should also work for the T60.

In the "Regional and Language Options" (accessible from the control panel) you can add another keyboard layout in the "Languages" card, by clicking on the "Details" button in the "Text services and input languages".

Once you add a German keyboard, you will be able to switch from English to German using the language bar in the task bar, or the language button in Word. It will also work in other applications, e.g. Internet Explorer and Notepad.

The main drawback I can think of is that when in German mode, the "Z" and "Y" keys will be interchanged, and unless you use dry transfers (or some other method) to mark the new keys (ä,ö,ü,ß), you will have to memorize their position. A second, but in my opinion very minor drawback, is that it will be missing the "Alt Gr" key.

Anyone else using this solution?

- Daniel

I write regularly in both English and German and, of course, I need umlauts for German. Since my preferred language is English, I have an English physical keyboard on my T60p. To make the umlaut characters available I have specified the keyboard layout as US-International in Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Languages > Details. The umlaut characters can then be entered in two ways:

"a = ä OR Right-Alt + q = ä
"o = ö OR Right-Alt + p = ö
"u = ü OR Right-Alt + y = ü

with Shift for caps in all cases.

This keyboard setting also makes many other useful characters available. See http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/refe ... oards.mspx for full details on this and other keyboards.

In Word I have also defined simpler shortcuts for the umlauts, eg Alt + a = ä.

danieldavid wrote: Once you add a German keyboard, you will be able to switch from English to German using the language bar in the task bar, or the language button in Word.

Yes, I am also familiar with this possibility. But the English and German keyboard layouts differ not only in the interchange of Y and Z; several non-alphanumeric characters are also in different positions. I couldn't get used to it, so I keep to one keyboard layout with umlaut characters as described in my previous post.

Thanks for the help. For right now I have switched the settings to US- Internation keyboard and can use the key combos to make the Umlauts and ß.

The upgrade to the 100gb 7200 Hitachi Travelstar drive was easy and made a big difference. I bought mine at costcentral for $163 US Dollars along with my Thinkpad so shipping was free. I bought a coolgear external enclosure for the 80gb factory installed drive and put it in just a few hours ago. It works fine.