Typing German characters

Since the question has been asked I thought it might be useful to others.

Many modern fonts carry characters beyond those you see on the keyboard. These extended characters are automatically reached when a computer is set up to a particular country's alphabet but how do you use them when using a standard English setup?

Microsoft Word can use 'Insert > Symbol' and some other programs have similar methods. The character set of any font can be seen using the Character Map program (Windows XP - System Tools > Character Map, Windows Vista > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map) and so can be used by selecting, copying and pasting but the common variations can be used with straightforward key combinations that are standard on popular fonts such as Ariel, Times, Courier, Tahoma, Verdana, Trebuchet etc. Simply hold down the 'Alt' key then use the numeric keypad to type the number, then release the Alt key....

Eszett - Alt+0223 = ß (HTML ß) (Mac - Option+s)
umlaut a - Alt+0228 = ä (HTML ä) (Mac - Option+u, the letter)
umlaut e - Alt+0235 = ë (HTML ë) (Mac - Option+u, the letter)
umlaut o - Alt+0246 = ö (HTML ö) (Mac - Option+u, the letter)
umlaut A - Alt+0196 = Ä (HTML Ä) (Mac - Option+u, the letter)
umlaut E - Alt+0203 = Ë (HTML Ë) (Mac - Option+u, the letter)
umlaut O - Alt+0214 = Ö (HTML Ö) (Mac - Option+u, the letter)