Hi everyone, this is my first post here in a while but I was wondering if anyone could give me some help........

I have seen a couple of 13 inch Macbook pros on eBay that look like they might go cheap. The one obvious catch is that they have German keyboard layouts. Is it possible to change the layout of the keys to QWERTY? From the pictures it seems possible; I imagine I'd probably have to buy a new set of keys being as the German ones have different characters on but is there anything else I would have to consider (assuming that it is indeed possible)?

Thanks in advance.

Although possible, I think that the keys are easily broken

Hi, I did mine a while ago (I've since changed it back).

There are lots of YouTube videos out there and I would suggest studying them before starting.

It does feel like you're going to break them when you do it though. When you get the right movement it becomes fairly easy.

When I first moved to Germany, I was using UK keyboards with a German layout in Windows and Linux, it took a little getting used to, but it was quick.

The advantage of OS X (and Windows Vista/7 Ultimate) is that you can change the OS language on the fly, so that side is easy.

Nowadays, I can switch between keyboards with UK and German layouts without losing speed, I just simply adjust. I can type at around 55 words per minute on either and it takes about a minute to remember that the Y and Z have swapped places.

Out of interest, Dave, what's the German layout like? Is it QWERTY with some alterations (Y and Z, as you mentioned). I know the French use AZERTY, and I'm getting fairly used to using that. It's the numbers on the the top row that require you to press shift to get at that gets me everytime!

German Apple layout:



German Windows layout:



The biggest problem is that regularly used things, like @, [], {}, \ etc. are on Alt Gr + key press and, worst of all, Apple use different keys to Windows AND [b]they don't bloody label them, so you have to spend ages randomly pressing keys, until you find them![/quote]

[ ] are alt gr + 8 and 9 under Windows (and labelled), but alt gr + 5 and 6 under OS X, but not displayed on the keyboard!

@ is alt gr + q under Windows, Alt gr + L under OS X, very confusing, until you get used to it!

I know what you mean about \ {} [], because I've tried LaTeX-ing documents on a French PC, and it was not easy. I was much happier to get back to my British Mac with TextMate!

Yeah, I usually have the OS set up to use both UK and German keyboard layouts, then switch between them, depending on what I am doing - I touch type anyway, so I don't need to look at the keycaps anyway.