The German extended keyboard layout is an extended version of the basic German keyboard layout. It enables users to enter all letters and diacritical marks used in the primary official languages of all countries worldwide and in European minority languages, provided these languages use the Latin script. It also enables the input of all punctuation marks regularly used in Europe and various frequently used special characters such as bullet points and arrows, as well as transcription characters for other writing systems.
There are two variants: The "E1" variant is compliant with the common German key arrangement (which employs an extra key right of the left Shift key, in comparison with the common US QWERTY key arrangement), to be used on existing German standard keyboards where ony additional engravings are appropriate, but no changes. The "E2" variant complies with the common US QWERTY key arrangement hardware (but would require a different key labelling).
The layout variants can be selected in Microsoft Windows since the 24H2 update for Windows 11 as "German extended (E1)" resp. "German extended (E2)" (or "Deutsch erweitert (E1)" resp. "Deutsch erweitert (E2)" if German language is selected).
The "E1" and "E2" variants were first defined in the 2018 version of the German DIN standard and were slightly revised in the current 2023 version (DIN 2137-01:2023-08). Thus, they are two of the three current standard German-language keyboard layouts for Germany and Austria (alongside the basic keyboard layout now called "T1", which has been standardized since 2003). They replace the extended layouts T2 and defined in the 2012 version of DIN 2137, which did not gain widespread use.
The extended keyboard layout meets the following requirements:
The characters at the lower left of the keytop depictions are produced by pressing the key without pressing a special key simultaneously.<br /> The characters at the top left are produced by pressing the key together with (the Shift key. <br />The characters at the lower right (in black) are produced by pressing the key while holding down .<br />The characters at the top right (depicted in red or green) are entered using the "Extra Selector" key (, i.e. , see below).<br />The characters depicted in green are usually in fact not engraved on the keytops (see below "Additional characters enterable by the Extra Selector key").
Dead keys for diacritical marks are marked by narrow horizontal rectangles, which also indicate the position of the diacritical mark relative to the base letter (this is according to ISO/IEC 9995-11). First, the dead key is to be pressed and released, then the base letter. According to DIN 2137-01:2023-08, this only has to work for combinations for which individual code points are defined in Unicode (precomposed characters), as the Microsoft Windows keyboard driver model only allows this (as of December 2025). However, this covers the common use cases for widely used languages. To be able to enter diacritical characters independently of this restriction, you can also enter them after the base character by actuating the dead key twice.
For example, to enter the character ÃÂ (capital C with cedilla), press (i.e., ), release them, and then press the keys.
Dead keys also can be chained, in particular for Vietnamese. For example, to enter á»± (u with horn and underdot), press for the horn, release these keys, then press for the underdot, release these keys, then press . (The order in which the diacritical marks are entered is irrelevant.)
To enter a Ẹà(E with acute accent and underdot) for Yoruba (as an example of a character not available in Unicode as a precomposed character), press , release these keys, then , then the same key again, then , then the same key combination again.
The characters shown at the top right of the keytop depictions are entered using the special "Extra Selector" key combination , which is symbolized as . If a letter is shown that has uppercase and lowercase variants, only the lowercase variant is shown on the keytop. If two characters are shown in the upper right quadrant of the keytop depiction, the first (upper left) one is to be entered using the Shift key on the second input key.
Examples:
Special Selector keys are an extension of the dead key concept and work in the same way: first, the Special Selector key is pressed together with , then a basic character; this results in the selection of an input character assigned to this combination. Some of the selection keys are also dead keys: for example, when applied to letters, the "caron and subscript key" () produces a combination with the caron, thus acting as a dead key, while for numbers it produces the corresponding subscript number. Such modifier keys (except and for superscripting and subscripting digits) are indicated by an additional symbol on the narrow horizontal rectangle that indicates the function of the modifier key (õ for phonetic transcription, àfor mathematical symbols, ñ for Greek letters).
DIN 2137-01:2023-08 does not stipulate that the key located on the left in the third row must be a Caps Lock or Shift Lock key, but recommends that this key position be used as a "left Alt Gr key." This would have the ergonomic advantage for touch typists that no input character requires the simultaneous use of two fingers of the same hand. The Caps Lock or Shift Lock function should then be accessible in another way, for example, by pressing this key together with the Control key to act as a Shift Lock (this would have the additional advantage to prevent accidental activation of the Shift Lock). The standard does not explicitly specify anything binding in this regard.
The Microsoft implementation (as of Windows 11 24H2) however utilizes the key as Shift Lock in the same way as for the basic German keyboard layout. However, it allows the simultaneous pressing of the left control key with the Alt key (which is only present as "left Alt key" on German keyboards) to act as Alt Gr key. Thus, characters reachable by Alt Gr on the right half of the keyboard are at least reachable by a uniform way of the use of the left hand, avoiding at least dislocating finger movements that otherwise would be required for combining with keys arranged vertical above the key.
Diacritical marks are symbolized by a narrow horizontal rectangle. This also indicates the position of the character relative to the base letter.
Some characters which are otherwise difficult to distinguish are symbolized together with a narrow vertical rectangle, which indicates the cap height (capital letter height) and thus the vertical position of the character.
Dead keys and Special Selector keys are marked in light or dark orange in the following lists.
The key listed in the column "Key" is to be actuated together with the key , in no case together with the Shift key .<br />The table is sorted by the position of the keys in the German keyboard layout. A thicker horizontal separation line in this table indicates a new row of the keyboard layout.<br />The list only shows the characters that require a special explanation.
Other characters that can be entered using the Extra Selector key are not shown on the keytops, as they are only included for special applications (e.g., for reproducing historical texts). After entering the Extra Selector key, the input character listed in the following table is to be entered to get the character listed in the "result" row.
The "telephony star" (to be entered by â ) is the asterisk symbol that matches the hash sign "#" in design, position, and size for the description of inputs made on a telephone keypad. Since Unicode version 16.0 (released in September 2024), the Unicode character â (U+2217 ) is dedicated for this purpose.-
The "double acute and IPA Special Selector key" () can be used to enter all phonetic symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as listed in the 1999 edition of the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (the current edition as of December 2025), excluding some of the symbols listed there in the Appendix 3: Extensions to the IPA. This repertoire is supplemented by three symbols ô, õ, and ö used in sinology. To enter such characters, press the key followed by a letter and a number. (Thus, this key acts like a compose key, with the exception that the result does not optically resemble a composition of the two following characters.) This pair identifies the IPA character according to the following tables (upper table: enter the letter first, followed by the digit; lower table: reverse order).
The diacritical characters entered in this way according to the lower table are always applied to the previously entered letter (or, in the case of subsequent entry, to the character to the left of the cursor).
The following tables correspond to those in the international standard ISO/IEC 9995-9. However, since the selection key used here also functions as a dead key (for applying a double acute) for the letters o and u, the umlauts ö and ü are used instead for phonetic transcription input.
Examples:
The following common IPA special characters can be entered using shorter key sequences:
The "Greek Special Selector and horn key" () can be used to enter all characters of the Greek alphabet, both for use as symbols in scientific and technical texts and for entering short Greek texts. All diacritical marks used in classical Ancient Greek also can be entered.
The following table complies with the international standard ISO/IEC 9995-9. However, since the selector key used here also functions as a dead key for applying the Vietnamese horn (dấu móc) to the letters o and u, the umlauts ö and ü are used instead for Greek input. The aforementioned standard contains the "comma above" (for spiritus lenis) in a different table, which is why the column "ÃÂ" has been added here.
Table arranged according to the Greek alphabet:
Diacritical marks are entered as follows, always after the letter (if entered later, they appear to the left of the cursor):
Example: The input sequence â yields ÃÂ, the subsequent input â â â â â â supplements this to ÃÂ̔͂ͅ (Omega with spiritus asper, circumflex and iota subscriptum), if correct Unicode character composing is supported by software and font.
For Modern Greek texts, especially for proper names processed in accordance with DIN 91379, the tonos (acute accent) on all vowels and the dialytika (trema) on the letters ù and àcan also be entered as dead keys. Example: â â gives ï (iota with tonos). The combination of tonos + dialytika on the lowercase letters ù and àis generated for this purpose with the dead key sequence â (since a sequence of three dead keys cannot be easily implemented in all keyboard drivers).
The "comma below" key () can be used to enter letters for special user groups and special linguistic characters, as listed in the following tables.
In addition to various common mathematical symbols that are already included in the basic assignment or can be entered using the Extra Selector key according to the tables above, a selection of more specialized mathematical symbols can be entered using the "Math Special Selector or ring key" (). The selector key only produces a ring accent or an encirclement for symbols marked by colored table cells.
Some of the assignments to letters are based on the English name of the symbol, such as infinity, root, cube root.
Using the strike-through key () followed by a digit or a special character key, additional bullet symbols, dingbats, and decorative characters can be entered according to the following table:
With special combinations of two dead keys entered in succession, additional diacritical marks can be entered (especially for transliterations and linguistic texts) according to the following table:
The standard space is entered using the space bar. This function does not change if the Shift key ⧠is pressed simultaneously or if Caps Lock is activated. The combination produces a non-breaking space. For the narrow non-breaking space, which is used more frequently in advanced typography, especially in abbreviations according to DIN 5008, there is the dedicated key combination . Thus, a dedicated key with an easily recognizable symbol is available for this purpose.
Overall, the following spaces and other invisible characters can be entered:
Special combinations of two dead keys entered in succession can be used to superscript, subscript, or encircle the 26 letters a...z and A...Z. This effectively enters the special Unicode characters that have the corresponding appearance. While Unicode contains encircled variants for all of these letters, it does not contain superscript or subscript variants for all of these letters (in particular, there are no subscript uppercase letters at all). The input option described here only works for superscript and subscript if the target letter is available in the Basic Multilingual Plane of Unicode. On the other hand, this character selection also works independently of software in unformatted plain text. In addition, the correct Unicode characters are used for languages in which superscript letters are elements of spelling, or used in linguistic texts (for example, about the Proto-Indo-European language).
Besides the German extended keyboard layout "E1", The German standard DIN 2137 specifies a variant "E2". This is intended to be used on keyboards whose hardware resembles the key arrangement of the standard US QWERTY keyboard, thus lacking one key compared to the standard German QWERTZ hardware (on the right side of the left shift key, thus enabling a broader left shift key). This allows to produce e.g. special keyboard hardware in small numbers (e.g. for persons with restricted mobility), for which the German version then only has to deviate from the US version in the key labelling, but not in the key arrangement.
As the superscripted digits <sup>2</sup> and <sup>3</sup>, which occupy a separate position on the "E1" layout as well as on the basic German keyboard layout, can entered by the key combinations + resp. + using the extended layout, they no longer need a separate position. The latter also applies to the ñ symbol, which can be entered by +. Therefore, the characters "<", ">", and "", which are positioned on the key right to the left shift key on the "E1" layout, are moved to those positions on the "E2" layout (together with an additional move of the "ÃÂ" to give the "" a more prominent position).
Since December 2024, keyboards and keycap sets with labelling according to the German extended keyboard layout "E1" are available from a specialized German supplier.
Since the 24H2 update for Windows 11, the German extended keyboard layouts "E1" and "E2" are available in Microsoft Windows as "German extended (E1)" resp. "German extended (E2)".
For Microsoft Windows 8/10/11, a driver with extended functions is available from a private developer, among other solutions. In particular, a variant is also available there in which the left key of the middle row ("ASDFG row") functions as a left Alt Gr key in accordance with the recommendation of the standard, but still has the shift lock function when pressed simultaneously with the Control key.
MacOS offers a layout "German â Standard" in addition to the usual German keyboard layout, which is largely compatible with the German extended layout "E1" in Microsoft Windows.
A driver for Linux is available from component xkeyboard-config 2.44 of the X Window System. The keyboard layout can be selected, for example, with <code>setxkbmap de e1</code> resp. <code>setxkbmap de e2</code>.
Latin International keyboard layout