Dear Kevin,

On 12.06.2010, at 08:10, Kevin Rodgers wrote:

> Stefan Vollmar wrote:
>> Dear Kevin,
>> On 09.06.2010, at 05:43, Kevin Rodgers wrote:
>>> Please show us the insert statement.
>> (insert "Umlaut: ü")
> 
> What happens if you use a coding-system independent representation
> in your ~/.emacs:
> 
> (insert "Umlaut: \u00FC")


It works with the \u00FC representation, so this is another solution in addition to using (string-make-multibyte "ü"), probably very similar in effect.

However, here is an interesting observation: that insert statement is used in a site-lisp/site-start.el file. It produces the mentioned problem when Emacs is started. If, in contrast, Emacs is running and I do a load-file of site-start.el then, 

(insert "Umlaut: ü")

will work exactly as observed on recent versions of Emacs on MacOS and Linux.

Warm regards,
 Stefan
-- 
Dr. Stefan Vollmar, Dipl.-Phys.
Head of IT group
Max-Planck-Institut für neurologische Forschung
Gleuelerstr. 50, 50931 Köln, Germany
Tel.: +49-221-4726-213  FAX +49-221-4726-298
Tel.: +49-221-478-5713  Mobile: 0160-93874279
Email: vollmar@nf.mpg.de   http://www.nf.mpg.de