Test every key on a German QWERTZ keyboard — the ISO shape, with a tall Enter, a short left Shift and the extra key beside it.
Simply press any key on your keyboard to test it — if it works it will turn green
0Keys Pressed0Total Keys0%Tested
QWERTZ on the ISO shape — Y and Z swap, umlauts take the punctuation caps, and the board gains a tall Enter, a short left Shift and an extra key beside it (105 keys full size, one more than ANSI). Standard key positions, with no vendor-specific extras.
Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+N, Alt+Tab and the Windows or Command key are reserved by the browser and the operating system. No web page receives them, so they cannot be tested here or anywhere else in a browser.
Keys shown greyed out with a dashed outline cannot be tested: your keyboard handles them internally and the browser never receives a key event for them. They are excluded from the totals, so 100% stays reachable.
At a glance
Key counts and layout facts
Detail
Value
Common name
QWERTZ, German layout
Physical shape
ISO
Key count (full size)
105 keys
Key count (TKL)
88 keys
Enter key
Tall, two rows, notched
Left Shift
Shortened, with an extra key beside it
Extra key reports as
IntlBackslash
Used in
Germany, Austria, Switzerland
A QWERTZ keyboard in numbers
Every figure describes the German ISO board this page opens on.
105
Testable keysOne more than ANSI, from the shortened left Shift.
1
Extra ISO keyIntlBackslash, beside the left Shift.
2
Letters that swapY and Z trade places against a US layout.
3
Umlaut keysÄ, Ö and Ü take the punctuation caps.
How to test a QWERTZ keyboard
The ISO shape changes three physical keys, not just the legends.
1
Confirm the board shape matches
A QWERTZ board should show a tall two-row Enter, a short left Shift and an extra key beside that Shift. If your hardware has a wide flat Enter instead, switch the Key Layout selector to QWERTY — you have an ANSI board with German legends.
2
Press the ISO-specific keys first
The extra key beside the left Shift is the one an ANSI board does not have. Press it, then press the tall Enter at both its upper and lower halves — it is one key in two rows, and both halves must register.
3
Work the rest of the board
Function row, number row, letter rows, bottom row, navigation cluster, number pad. Note that Alt Gr on the right sends AltRight, and the umlaut keys sit where the US semicolon, quote and bracket keys are.
What to check on a QWERTZ board
Five checks specific to the German ISO layout.
Y and Z are swapped
The key that reads Z on a QWERTZ board sits at the US Y position and sends KeyY. Key codes describe physical positions, not printed letters, which is why the legends move and the codes do not.
The extra key beside left Shift
IntlBackslash exists only on ISO boards. It is the 105th key, and an ANSI board simply does not have it.
The tall Enter
A two-row Enter rides on a stabiliser. Press it at the top half and again at the bottom half — a stabiliser fault shows as one half failing.
Alt Gr is AltRight
The right-hand Alt Gr key sends the standard AltRight code. Nothing special is needed to test it.
Umlaut keys under fast typing
Ä, Ö and Ü take heavy use in German. Test each several times rather than once.
Everything about this layout
The shape, the trade-offs and what to watch for when testing it.
01
ANSI versus ISO: the shape, not the letters
The letter differences are the obvious part: Y and Z swap places, and the umlauts Ä, Ö and Ü take the caps that a US board uses for quote, semicolon and bracket. But the more important difference for testing is physical.
An ISO board has a tall Enter key that spans two rows and is notched at its bottom-left corner, where an ANSI board has a wide flat Enter on a single row. To make room, the backslash key moves down beside Enter.
ISO also shortens the left Shift key and adds an extra key beside it, which browsers report as IntlBackslash and which German boards label with the greater-than and less-than symbols. That extra key is why an ISO board has 105 keys where ANSI has 104.
02
Why event codes still look American
Press the key marked Z on a German keyboard and this test lights up the key in the Y position. That is not a bug, and your keyboard is not broken.
Browsers report a property called the key code, which describes a physical position on a reference US keyboard rather than the character printed on the cap. The key at the position US boards call KeyY is reported as KeyY no matter what its cap says.
This is deliberate and it is what makes gaming work across layouts: a game that binds WASD binds four physical positions, so it stays under the same fingers whether the caps read WASD or ZQSD. Selecting QWERTZ here repaints the legends onto those same positions, which is exactly what your operating system does when you choose a German layout.
03
The keys that trip people up
The extra ISO key beside the left Shift is the one most often missed, because on many boards it is narrow and sits where a US typist expects Shift to begin. It reports as IntlBackslash and is worth pressing deliberately.
The Alt Gr key on the right is a genuine, testable key that reports as AltRight. On a German layout it produces the third characters printed on the caps — the at sign on Q, the euro sign on E, the backslash on the ß key — so it is worth confirming it registers.
The key beside Enter, labelled with the hash and apostrophe, reports as Backslash despite sitting nowhere near where a US backslash lives. Again, the code describes the physical position on the reference board, not the legend.
04
Testing a German keyboard
Work through the board in rows exactly as you would on any other layout. The count to aim for is 105 on a full-size board, 88 on a tenkeyless, and one more than the ANSI figure on every other form factor, because the extra ISO key exists on all of them.
If your board is a laptop or a compact size rather than full size, change the Form Factor dropdown as well. The ISO transformation applies to every form factor, so a 65% German laptop board will draw with the tall Enter and the extra Shift key too.
Pay attention to the umlaut keys and the ß key. They sit in positions a US board uses for punctuation, so if you have ever remapped anything or switched layouts in your operating system, they are the first place a mismatch will show.
QWERTZ against the other character layouts
Character layout and physical shape are two separate choices.
Testable key count and shape by character layout
Character layout
Testable keys
Enter shape
Left Shift
Extra ISO key
QWERTY (US, ANSI)
104
Wide, one row
Full length
No
QWERTZ (German, ISO)
105
Tall, two rows
Shortened
Yes
AZERTY (French, ISO)
105
Tall, two rows
Shortened
Yes
Both ISO layouts share the same physical shape. Only the printed legends differ between QWERTZ and AZERTY.
Fixing a QWERTZ keyboard
Three faults specific to German layouts.
1Y and Z produce each other
On the test:The correct cap lights on screen, but the wrong letter is typed.
Check your operating system's input language, which is almost certainly set to English.
Add German to your input languages and select it.
Remove input languages you do not use — an accidental shortcut switches between them.
Treat this as a software setting. The keyboard is correct, because the right cap lit up.
2The umlaut keys type semicolons and quotes
On the test:Ä, Ö and Ü caps light, but US punctuation is typed.
Switch your system input language to German.
Confirm here that the correct caps light, which proves the hardware is fine.
Check you have not selected German (IBM) or another variant that remaps those positions.
3The extra key beside left Shift does nothing
On the test:IntlBackslash stays blank.
Confirm your board actually has this key. ANSI boards do not, and the layout selector should then be QWERTY.
Press the key at its centre. It is a narrow 1u key that is easy to miss.
Check your input language is set to a layout that maps it, since some US layouts leave it unassigned.
Frequently asked questions
Why does pressing Z light up the Y key?
Because browsers report physical positions, not printed characters. On a QWERTZ board the cap marked Z sits at the position a US keyboard calls KeyY, so that is what gets reported. Selecting QWERTZ here repaints the legends so the board matches yours.
How many keys does a German keyboard have?
105 on a full-size board — one more than the 104 of a US ANSI board. The extra key sits beside a shortened left Shift and reports as IntlBackslash. Every ISO form factor carries that extra key, so the same plus-one applies to TKL, 75%, 65% and laptop boards.
What is the difference between ANSI and ISO?
Three things: ISO has a tall two-row Enter notched at the bottom left where ANSI has a wide flat one, ISO shortens the left Shift to fit an extra key beside it, and ISO therefore has one more key overall.
Does Alt Gr register on this test?
Yes. Alt Gr is a real key and reports as AltRight, so it will light up the right-hand Alt position. It is what produces the third characters printed on German keycaps, such as the at sign on Q and the euro sign on E.
Can I test a German laptop keyboard?
Yes. Keep QWERTZ selected and change the Form Factor dropdown to the laptop size that matches your machine. The ISO shape applies to every form factor, so the tall Enter and the extra Shift key are drawn on compact boards too.
Test another keyboard
Every layout below opens with its own board ready to test.
