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I wanted to use the ß, but the font I use doesn't have the character. Hence, I decided to use the double s method. Tut mir leid, aber ich kann's auch nicht schöner machen .

Couldn't you draw an ß by yourself? Es sei Ihnen jedoch verziehen, mein Herr, in Anbetracht der Schönheit Ihres gar wohlfeinen Gemäldes humoresken Inhaltes. :-)

I should take some of the suggested drugs in order not to notuce the missing ß, but working antiautistica haven't been invented yet. :-)

You can, however, if ß is not present (for example on non-german keyboards or on a teletype), put any ß back into ss, that's right. (It's obvious: an ß replaces an individable ss.) In Switzerland, the ß isn't used, instead, any ss reamains ss (e. g. Strasse instead of Straße). But if you're refering to the german language, the use of the ß ligature is required for correctness.

To explicitely force the use of ß where no ß is available, it's possible to use sz (e. g. Strasze instead of Straße); this form is mostly advised in cases where you need to differentiate between ss and ß, for example in names of persons. The combination sz does not appear in reality that much so it can easily be used to indicate ß in a name.

A good example why ß and ss aren't the same are the words "die Masse" (the mass, the matter) and "die Maße" (the dimensions). In order to indicate this difference without being able to use the ß, the latter one could be written "die Masze", too. But as I mentioned before, this special isn't used very often.

Wow, I'm sounding like a teacher... :-)

Thanks for the info, I thought it did not matter at all. (btw, on non-german keyboard you can usually still make a ß (alt+b on my Finnish and alt+s on my international keyboard )