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I need to be able to write german umlauts in Ubuntu 20.04 with a US keyboard. Found tons of outdated documentation on it, for example this question, which I couldn't apply to Ubuntu 20.04.

Keyboard preferences? Where's that? In Settings the only thing related to the keyboard is "Keyboard shortcuts".

Read about the "Compose Key", that should do the trick. But the documentation has not been updated in a very very looong time. How can I activate that in Ubuntu 20.04?

Or is the "Compose key" itself outdated? Then what is the 2020 way of inserting german umlauts?

user1785730
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  • You should add a German keyboard to your system. It is very easy switching between keyboards while typing. It seems that the English keyboard does not have any "compose" key. Go to Settings > Region & Language and add the German keyboard under Input Sources. Click on the "eye" button to its right to see the capabilities of the keyboard. – FedKad Sep 11 '20 at 07:26

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According to another page in the Ubuntu documentation, the Compose key must be enabled with GNOME Tweaks (install it with sudo apt install gnome-tweaks).

To enable it, open Tweaks and navigate to the “Keyboard & Mouse” section, then, click on the button to the right of Compose Key. The menu that pops up will allow you to enable the compose key and to select which button it is bound to.

MithicSpirit
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I have the Compose Key active, however, as I do have to type German umlauts (and French accents) rather often, I switched to the "English (US, alt. intl.)" layout, where quotes are deadkeys. So just typing "u or ^a automatically results in ü or â, respectively (typing "" or " results in normal quotes; similarly for the other dead keys).

The Compose Key is useful for all the other fun characters.

Marcel Waldvogel
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Found this page looking for a solution to the same question with the exception that I am currently in Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy)and I see no "Compose Key" in Tweaks as has been suggested. Has it perhaps been changed to: "Keyboard: Show Extended Input Sources" which I do see in the top right-hand corner (See screenshot). Tweaks enter image description here

I have gone and downloaded a language pack and can toggle between different language keyboard in the top panel. When I toggle the drop down menu, offers 'en' for English, 'de' for German etc. But, I don't really want to have to change keyboard each time I want to write an Umlaut, for e.g. In OSX we can simply hold-down the 'u' key and up come a whole variety of options of 'u' with various accents...same with 'a' or 'n' or 'c' which are the typical letters in German, French, Spanish that have various accents. I can then resume typing in my familiar keyboard layout. Is SUCH a solution in Ubuntu, also possible? Regards livingdaylight

tinlyx
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livingdaylight
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  • The compose key related stuff has been moved to gnome-control-center (GNOME Settings) → Keyboard → Special Character Entry. – FedKad Mar 19 '23 at 12:25