13. November 2022

Quick-fix: Typing ÄÖÜ on a UK Keyboard

UK keyboards, for good reasons, do not come with keys for ÄÖÜ. Here is a quick-and-dirty fix to customize the xkb symbols map, tested on on Arch Linux.

In my long tradition of posting such snippets into the Internet such that I can later retrieve them by searching on Google, here is how to type ÄÖÜ on a UK keyboard, by typing “AltGr+a”, “AltGr+A”, “AltGr+o”, “AltGr+O”, … on the keyboard:

1. Locate the keyboard map in use (e.g.: /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gb).
2. Identify section in use (e.g.: `xkb_symbols “basic” {`)
3. Insert extra lines

    key <AC01>  { [         a,          A,        U00E4,        U00C4 ] };
    key <AD07>	{ [         u,          U,    	  U00FC,        U00DC ]	};
    key <AD09>	{ [         o,          O,        U00F6,        U00D6 ]	};