I found this very useful for typing "äüö" on 'English' Windows systems. It allows you use a simple key combination to type umlauts and other German characters without switching to a German keyboard layout.

It's freeware and I've been using for a year now with no problems.
http://www.aboutgerman.net/agn_dekey.htm

For those of you on Windows 7, apparently there is already a way to do this natively, but I never found it.

Stu

There are also virtual keyboards, that don't require a download - just open in a browser tab.

e.g. http://www.branah.com/german

Also, when using Google Translate, if input language is set to German, a DE virtual keyboard is available - small icon, bottom left of input box. Text can be copied and pasted.

Alternatively, the following is also acceptable and widely used:

- for ä, write ae
- for ö, write oe
- for ü, write ue

There is/was also a key sequence, using a number code for unavailable keyboard foreign characters, but I have long forgotten this, or may even be confusing with my old Psion palmtop

I use a shortcut to Switch keyboards between 'US' and 'US-International' layouts. This can be set up in Windows by accessing Control Panel, Region and Language, Keyboards and Languages, Change Keyboards.

While active, it means than any of the characters ' " ` ^ ~ followed by an accentable character will apply the relevant one to it. Hence ç é ö à ô ñ etc. The rest of the keys follow the standard US layout.

Simples

I use Ctrl+Shift+2 to switch to international and Ctrl+Shift+1 to switch it back again, to avoid ending up with a lot of garbage or having to press the space key after each of the special characters.

If you know the ascii codes and have a numeric keypad it's possible to just hold the alt key and type the relevant number, starting around 640 on my system, but it may vary on the exact configuration, as it's not in the standard ascii range. Allows some that aren't supported in the previous method, e.g Å.

As I got more fluent, copy and pasting letters every few words became more painful than the task of correctly composing German

This method makes sense to me as it sticks to the actual letter you want to type, all you're doing is adding an umlaut by pressing a modifier key.

You type a completed script, and just copy and paste.

I forgot to mention my preferred (and easiest method) ...... buy a laptop here with a Swiss (DE/FR) keyboard.