BASIC FORMATTING
Text Formatting
Editing text in Google Docs is similar to using editors of other word processing software.
The Styles toolbar menu at the top of your document displays the style of your text selection in a document, and lets you change the style or clear the formatting of your text.
To change the font or text size, simply select the text that you'd like to change and click either the font menu, which lists Arial as the default font, or the text-size drop-down menu, set to 11pt by default. Choose a new font or text size and the changes are applied to the selected text.
The Styles toolbar menu at the top of your document displays the style of your text selection in a document, and lets you change the style or clear the formatting of your text.
To change the font or text size, simply select the text that you'd like to change and click either the font menu, which lists Arial as the default font, or the text-size drop-down menu, set to 11pt by default. Choose a new font or text size and the changes are applied to the selected text.
Please note: Arial and Times New Roman only appear as options in the font menu if you have these fonts installed on your computer.
To view a list of heading available, click the menu that appears right before the Font drop-down menu, or click Format and select Paragraph styles. Then, choose one of the styles, which range from 'Heading 1,' the biggest, to 'Heading 6,' the smallest.
The Styles Toolbar: Text Color or Highlight Color
- Highlight the text.
- Click the 'A' drop-down menu and choose a color for text color, or click the drop-down menu with the highlighter pen (it's next to the text color menu) and choose a color.
Paint Format Tool
Google documents let you copy the formatting you’ve applied to a specific section of text to another section using the paint format tool. If you’re familiar with the paint format tool in Google spreadsheets, this works in a similar manner.
To use this tool, select the text that's formatted in the way that you want to copy. Then, click the paintbrush icon in your toolbar, and select the text to which you want to apply the formatting. The formatting from the original text will be copied to the selected text.
To change the formatting in multiple places within your document, double-click the paintbrush icon. You'll enter a mode that lets you highlight multiple text selections, and apply the same formatting to each selection. When you're done applying formatting to these selections, click the paintbrush icon again.
You can also use the paint format tool with keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+Option+C will copy the formatting of the text you've selected, and Ctrl+Option+V will apply any copy that formatting to a different text selection.
To use this tool, select the text that's formatted in the way that you want to copy. Then, click the paintbrush icon in your toolbar, and select the text to which you want to apply the formatting. The formatting from the original text will be copied to the selected text.
To change the formatting in multiple places within your document, double-click the paintbrush icon. You'll enter a mode that lets you highlight multiple text selections, and apply the same formatting to each selection. When you're done applying formatting to these selections, click the paintbrush icon again.
You can also use the paint format tool with keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+Option+C will copy the formatting of the text you've selected, and Ctrl+Option+V will apply any copy that formatting to a different text selection.
Paragraph Formatting
Google Docs has standard selections for line spacing, paragraph alignment, and lists. If you'd like to change the spacing of the document, follow these steps:
- Click the line spacing button on the far right of the toolbar
- Select an option from the menu.
Alignment
Bullets or Numbered List
Start a numbered or bulleted list by clicking on one of the list icons.
Pagination
Pagination adds visual page breaks while you’re editing your documents, so you can see how many pages of that report you’ve actually finished. With pagination, you’re able to see headers at the top of each page in your document, manual page breaks move text onto a new page, and footnotes appear at the bottom of the page automatically.
Click on View and then make sure there is a check mark next to Print layout to see pages within your document.
Click on View and then make sure there is a check mark next to Print layout to see pages within your document.
Add Images
You can enhance your document by inserting images. Google Docs also lets you choose to display the image inline or fixed.
To insert an image, follow these steps:
To insert an image, follow these steps:
- Click the Insert drop-down menu from the toolbar and select Image.
- Depending on what image you'd like to add to the document, click Upload, Take a snapshot, By URL, Your Albums (from Picasa & Google+), Google Drive, or Search and follow these instructions:
- Upload: Choose an image from your computer and click the Upload button, or you can click and drag an image into the dotted area within the box to upload the image.
- Take a snapshot: After allowing access to your webcam, you can take a snapshot and insert that directly into your document
- By URL: Type the URL of a an image from the Web and click Select.
- Your albums: Your Google+ web albums will automatically be displayed when you select this option. You can then scroll through an album to find the image you are looking for.
- Google Drive: Choose an image file that you already have within your Google Drive
- Search: Enter a search term to find an image using Image Search, and click the Search button. Use the pulldown menu to the left of the search box to select where the images will be coming from. You can search Google, Life images, or Stock Images. Once you've found what you were looking for, click the image and the Select button.
Insert Links
When you type something that documents recognizes as a link, it will become a link automatically. Try typing “docs.google.com”, “www.google.com,” or an email address in a document to try it out.
You can also hyperlink text. Do do this:
1. Type the text that you would like to link
2. Highlight the text
3. Click on the link icon
4. Enter the URL of the site you would like the text to go to
5. Click Apply
You can also hyperlink text. Do do this:
1. Type the text that you would like to link
2. Highlight the text
3. Click on the link icon
4. Enter the URL of the site you would like the text to go to
5. Click Apply
Insert Equations
You can easily insert mathematical equations into your documents, and collaborate on a single equation at once with multiple people. Follow these steps to add an equation to your doc:
4. If you'd like to edit the equation afterwards, simply click the equation within the document and change it. If you don't see the equation toolbar, click View and select Show equation toolbar.
- Click the Insert drop-down menu and select Equation.
- Select the mathematical symbol you want to add from one of these menus:
- Greek letters
- General operators
- Comparison and inclusion operators
- Operators with variables
- Arrows
4. If you'd like to edit the equation afterwards, simply click the equation within the document and change it. If you don't see the equation toolbar, click View and select Show equation toolbar.