The presented book is based on years of experience that the author has gained while dealing with the reform of orthography from 1996, particularly as a representative of the German Academy for Language and Poetry in the Council for German Orthography. As a result of these activities, a comprehensive orthographic rulebook for the German language is presented, aiming for both factual consistency and clarity. Two chapters precede the rulebook, discussing how the terms 'rule' and 'rulebook' can be made accessible and applied to the vocabulary of German. The second chapter addresses the specifics of the individual parts of the rulebook, explicitly considering the question of why the orthographic reform poses such significant challenges in its implementation in everyday writing.