German Keyboard Tester

How QWERTZ differs from an English keyboard

Keyboards sold in Germany and Austria follow the German standard DIN 2137, usually called QWERTZ after the first six letters. If you learned to type on a US or UK keyboard, these are the changes you notice first:

• Z and Y swap places. Z sits in the top row next to T, because Z is far more common in German than Y.
• The umlauts have their own keys. Ü is to the right of P, and Ö and Ä are to the right of L, where a US keyboard has [, ; and '.
• ß is to the right of 0, with the question mark on Shift + ß. The key after it holds the acute and grave accents (´ and `).
• ^ is in the top-left corner, with ° on Shift + ^.
• Punctuation moves around. " is Shift + 2, § is Shift + 3, / is Shift + 7 and = is Shift + 0. The hyphen is to the right of the full stop, with the underscore on Shift.
• The keyboard is ISO shaped. It has a tall Enter key, a # key beside it and an extra < > | key between the left Shift and Y.

Symbols on Alt Gr

The right Alt key is labelled Alt Gr and types the third character printed on a key. Mac keyboards use Option instead, and some symbols sit on different keys:

Symbol	Windows	Mac
@	Alt Gr + Q	Option + L
€	Alt Gr + E	Option + E
[ and ]	Alt Gr + 8 and 9	Option + 5 and 6
{ and }	Alt Gr + 7 and 0	Option + 8 and 9
\	Alt Gr + ß	Option + Shift + 7
|	Alt Gr + <	Option + 7
~	Alt Gr + +	Option + N

On Windows, Alt Gr does the same as Ctrl + Alt, so Ctrl + Alt + Q also types @. That helps on compact keyboards without a right Alt key.

Accents, dead keys and the capital ẞ

^, ´ and ` are dead keys. They type nothing until you press the next key: ´ then e gives é, and ^ then o gives ô. To type the accent mark on its own, press the dead key and then Space. When ^ seems to do nothing, the key is fine; the computer is waiting for a second key.

The capital ẞ became part of official German spelling in 2017, but the standard layout printed on most keyboards has no key for it. Windows includes German Extended (E1) and German Extended (E2) layouts, based on the 2018 revision of DIN 2137, that add ẞ and many more accented letters on the same physical keys.

Common German keyboard problems

Y and Z are swapped, or Ö types a semicolon. The keyboard and the layout setting don’t match. Your keyboard is German and Windows uses an English layout, or the other way round. Press the Windows key + Space and pick German, then remove the layout you don’t use so it can’t come back.

The layout keeps changing on its own. Windows switches layouts with Left Alt + Shift, which is easy to press by accident while typing. You can turn the shortcut off in Settings, under Time & language, Typing, Advanced keyboard settings, Input language hot keys.

@ doesn’t work in one program. Some games and remote desktop tools capture Ctrl + Alt shortcuts. Use the real Alt Gr key, or change the shortcut in that program.

Swiss keyboards look German but aren’t. Austria uses the German layout, but Swiss keyboards put ü, ö and ä on the same keys as è, é and à and move several symbols. Use the Swiss German keyboard page for those.

What to press in the tester

The on-screen keyboard above shows German key labels in the ISO shape. Keys are matched by their position, so pressing the key printed Z lights up Z even when Windows is set to the wrong layout. That makes the tester a quick way to tell a faulty key from a wrong setting. Press the umlauts, ß, the ^ and ´ dead keys, # and the extra < key next to the left Shift. Then hold Alt Gr and press Q, E and 7 to 0.