I just don't seem to get it. So I come from the german speaking part of Switzerland and naturally I need äüö a lot when I write german texts. So in LaTeX I have the option to go via
"a "u "o
which isn't really comfortable, or I can use an additional package. So now the confusion starts.I can use either
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
or
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
So now if I create a new document and save it as a latin-1 encoded .tex file it seems it doesn't matter which option I chose they both work. Now why should I pick one over the other or use both? Which problems could occur (Do they occur if I use the same .tex file on another OS depending on which option I have chosen?)?
If I save the .tex encoded as lets say the mac os latin then the first option compiles but shows the wrong characters for the äüö's.Is it then like latex maps the ä according to the latin1 to a character and since the document is encoded as something different than latin1 then gets encoded to something different again?
So if the last 2 paragraphs have been confusing (mainly because I'm confused) the main question is: What does fontenc what inputenc doesn't do and vice versa?