How to Finally Format Text in Google Docs Using Basic Syntax
The formatting features of Google Docs have rarely evolved over the last decade. Typically, you can use keyboard shortcuts or the format bar and that’s it. But Google Docs recently introduced Markdown as a syntax-only formatting language, and it’s popular with developers and writers.
The beauty is in its simplicity: you don’t need a format bar or even keyboard shortcuts. How to make a word bold? Just wrap it between the stars. Italics? Use underscores. Markdown offers basic heading and link formatting options, as well as complex tables and code blocks using syntax.
Google has begun integrating parts of the Markdown syntax into Google Docs, Slides, and Drawings. Essentially, Google converts your Markdown syntax to formatted text as you type. It’s fast, efficient and cool. The slight downside is that the system only works when you’re writing text, so it won’t work if you insert a wall of Markdown text into your document.
How to enable Markdown in Google Docs
Once you enable Markdown from Google Docs once, it will work in all documents. Open a new document and choose Tools > Options > Automatically Detect Markdown . Click the OK button and you’re done.
How to Use Italic, Bold, and Strikethrough in Google Docs
As mentioned, Google only supports a subset of Markdown’s features, but even those features will come in handy for anyone who spends hours writing in Google Docs. Here is the syntax breakdown:
Begin the sentence with ” # ” for Heading 1, ” ## ” for Heading 2, ” ### ” for Heading 3, up to ” ###### ” for Heading 6.
To add links to a Google Doc, wrap the text you want to link with “[” and “]”. Immediately after that, provide a link enclosed in parentheses. So the text “Here is a link to the new [Google Docs document](www.docs.new)” becomes “Here is a link to the new Google Docs document “.
Markdown labels for bold, italic, and strikethrough are also carried over. As in WhatsApp , text enclosed in asterisks (*) will be bolded, underscores (_) will be italicized, and dashes (-) will have a strikethrough added.
And for now, that’s all. Google hasn’t integrated the full Markdown language, and hopefully there’s still a lot to be done. But this is a good start.