Get Rid of All the Formatting in Google Docs – A Simple Guide

Man, oh man! Have you ever found yourself feeling utterly frustrated with all the pesky formatting in your Google Docs? It’s like a wild creature that just won’t listen to reason. But fear not! I’m here to show you a simple and straightforward way to evict all that unwanted formatting from your precious document.

So, let’s get started, shall we? Here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: Highlight Everything

First things first, my friend. Go ahead and highlight all the text in your Google Doc. Yep, you heard me right. I’m talking about selecting every last word, sentence, and paragraph in your document. It’s time to corral that formatting mess!

Step 2: Clear Formatting

Okay, now that you’ve got everything selected, it’s time to take action. Look up at the top menu and find the “Format” tab. Click on it, and you’ll see a dropdown menu appear. You’re gonna want to scroll down that bad boy until you find the “Clear formatting” option. Go ahead and give it a satisfying click.

Step 3: Farewell, Formatting!

Ah, the moment of truth has arrived. Take a deep breath and bask in the glory of a formatting-free document. That’s right, my friend. All that unnecessary bolding, italics, and crazy font sizes are a thing of the past. You’ve conquered the beast!

Oh, but wait! Before you kick back and celebrate, I must tell you about one little caveat. Clearing formatting will also remove any indents, bullet points, and alignment settings you had in your document. So, be prepared to give those a little touch-up if needed. But hey, it’s a small price to pay for the bliss of formatting freedom, right?

And there you have it, folks! A quick and painless way to banish formatting from your Google Docs. You can now breathe a sigh of relief as you enjoy a clean and pristine document, ready to be filled with your brilliant ideas. Go forth and conquer!

Google Docs is Google’s version of other online services, such as Microsoft Word and Apple’s Pages. It allows you to easily create and collaborate on word-like documents with others directly in your browser. One great thing about it is that it’s available for both Windows and Mac OS users.

Removing Unwanted Formatting in Google Docs

There are times when you may copy and paste text from one source to another, bringing along formatting that you don’t want. Certain formatting combinations can be helpful to the final document, but if there’s too much of it, it can make the document difficult to read. If the formatting doesn’t align with your preferred style, then you’ll want to remove and correct it.

Hunting through the entire document for individually-applied formatting can be overly complicated. Luckily, there’s a better way. If you prefer to clear all formatting without having to retype the text, our tutorial will guide you through the necessary steps.

To remove all formatting from text in a Google Doc:

If You Want to Paste Text with Unwanted Formatting to a New Google Document

1. Select the text you want to copy by holding down the left mouse button and dragging your cursor, or hold down the Shift key and press the Right Arrow key.
2. Copy the text to your clipboard by pressing Ctrl + C (Windows) or Command + C (Mac). Alternatively, you can right-click the highlighted text and choose to copy or cut from the presented dialog box.
3. Open the new Google Doc in Google Drive or Google Docs.
4. Go to the Edit menu in Google Docs and select “Paste without formatting.” Alternatively, you can use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + V (Windows) or Command + Shift + V (Mac). Note that “Paste without formatting” may not appear as an option when using Safari, so the shortcut is better used on a Mac.

This will paste the copied text as plain text, free from any formatting. This option will remove all formatting, including links and images associated with the copied text. The pasted text will also use the same font as the surrounding text. Keep this in mind if you choose to use this method.

If You Already Have a Google Doc That Needs Formatting Cleared

Here’s what you can do to clear formatting from your Google Doc:

1. First, open up the Google Doc you want to clear formatting from. You can do this by going to Google Drive or directly to Google Docs.
2. Next, select the text you want to remove formatting from. You can do this by holding down the left-click and dragging your mouse over the text, or by holding down the Shift key and tapping the Right Arrow key. You can also select all the text by pressing CTRL + A (Windows) or Command + A (Mac).
3. Now, click on the “Format” tab and choose “Clear formatting” from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can use the shortcut CTRL + \ (Windows) or Command + \ (Mac), or click on the Clear formatting icon in the menu ribbon. This icon looks like an italic T with a diagonal slash through it.

The selected text will instantly lose its formatting and adopt the default text style for Google Docs. It’s important to note that this option won’t remove any images or links that have been copied or inserted into the document. Additionally, it won’t match the font of the surrounding text. For example, if you’re currently using Times New Roman but the default text is in Arial, the highlighted text will only appear in Arial.

If you’re not a fan of the way the selection appears once you’ve taken away all the formatting, just hit Ctrl + Z on Windows or Command + Z on Mac to undo it.